


The Jeon Zone

by nisakomi



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Prince of Tennis Fusion, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 07:42:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11573496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nisakomi/pseuds/nisakomi
Summary: No matter how he tries to slice, lob, smash, or volley, Wen Junhui always finds himself spinning back into Jeon Wonwoo’s orbit.





	The Jeon Zone

**Author's Note:**

> [written for the [book of wonhui](https://twitter.com/book_of_wonhui) collab. "book" prompt: _The Prince of Tennis_ by Konomi Takeshi]
> 
> for full disclosure, the last 19k of this fic was written in 17 hours. 
> 
> additional warnings/pairings/notes at end.

 

 

 

“No way! Are you kidding me?!”

Although Junhui couldn’t see the speaker past the border of upright juniper trees screening the court from the interlock path, the sound of the voice cut easily through the buzzing of early evening cicadas and rang out throughout the park. From the main road Junhui had expected the shouts to be part of a match in progress, but the closer he walked, the clearer it became that something more heated was taking place on the already hot summer day.

“Are _you_ kidding _me_? You’re crazy if you think I’ll just let you do whatever you want!”

Finally, Junhui rounded the corner, and at the sound of the gate crashing against the rest of the chain-link fencing, three heads turned toward him.

“And then there were four,” muttered one of the three people standing close together in the far deuce court, shaking his head. The blue ends decorating his bleached blond hair reflected light from the lowering sun.

“What’s going on?” Junhui asked, walking up to place one hand over the net cord, the other hand hoisting his bag further up his shoulder. As he spoke, he stared at the thin figure standing across from blond-and-blue, the only familiar face of the three.

“I got here first, but these guys wanted to play before me, which is _so not on_ ,” said Xu Minghao with narrowed eyes. An underclassman on the tennis team at Junhui’s university, he played third singles on second string last season, as a first year.

“Who exactly were you going to play? Yourself? Hoseok already said he’d be willing to play you after our match,” argued the shorter stranger.

“It looks like you have a partner now,” said blond-and-blue, presumably Hoseok, his voice calm. “But you know, it doesn’t count if one of you is late. Both players should be on the court for you to claim it, that’s the fair way to do it.”

Minghao stuck his racket out to point at Junhui. “This wasn’t planned! I wasn’t waiting for him!”

“But you clearly know each other,” the coppery haired one pointed out.

“So what—”

“Doubles,” Junhui cut in.

Three heads turned toward him again. “What?”

Junhui shrugged. “That way we’ll all play, right? I actually wasn’t looking for this guy but doubles seems like the easiest way to do this.”

The two strangers shared a glance. “I told you we should have stuck to the usual courts,” muttered the brunet.

Hoseok turned back to Junhui and nodded. “Fine. We came here to play tennis, not to argue.” He slung an arm around his friend’s shoulder.

“Whatever.” His friend turned his face away. “We’ll crush you.”

Minghao rolled his eyes and vaulted over the net onto Junhui’s side of the court. “They can try.”

“Confident in yourself?” Junhui laughed and put down his bag to retrieve a racket. “Have you even played doubles before?”

Minghao didn’t reply until after they tossed for first serve and he had to walk past Junhui to take his spot at the baseline. “Once or twice. In summer camp. When I was 12?” Then Minghao released the ball from his fingertips, sending it soaring into the air high above his head, and the match began.

Junhui frequented the garden court off campus whenever the ones on school grounds were locked. It was the closest spot to play tennis, and although there was only a single net, the court was well maintained and players cycled quickly through single set matches if others were waiting for a turn. Sometimes he’d meet familiar faces, but more often than not it’d be a stranger who lived in the area that he would start up a match against. These courts drew a wide variety of age groups and abilities, but what made them attractive was that usually, you could show up without an opponent and find someone else looking to play. For the most part, people came looking for singles matches, which Junhui took as an opportunity to work on groundstrokes and court coverage. Sure he specialized in doubles, but as a varsity tennis player, holding his own against others in singles came as a matter of course.

Against these current two, however, Junhui probably would have struggled in a one-on-one. His forearms throbbed returning any of Hoseok’s smashes, their power and speed eluding him more than once, and catching him floundering to return serves. Hoseok’s friend’s deceptively loose playing style ill-prepared Junhui and Minghao for the range of trick shots in his arsenal. Their earlier confidence at winning the match was understandable, these two were _good_. But they were playing two man singles.

And this? This was a doubles game.

Junhui and Minghao took the match in two consecutive sets off of their opponents’ rookie mistakes – leaving half the court open, not adapting to the net game, failing to go for balls that landed in the doubles court out of habitual judgement of the singles court lines. Minghao, a serve-and-volley kind of player with fast reflexes, caught balls at the net faster, and Junhui cleaned up behind him as necessary.

“You two on the college circuits? ITF?” Hoseok gripped Junhui’s hand in a firm handshake at the end of the game, his forearms veiny and the hems of his shirt sleeves stretched around defined biceps and triceps. He took the defeat gracefully, offering a well-mannered smile and warmth in his eyes before turning to Minghao.

“University team,” Junhui said, smiling supportively at the more defeated looking other guy.

“Guess we’ll see you in the tournaments this year then, if you’re from around here.”

“I’ll make sure to make first string so I can personally destroy you again,” Minghao said in a chipper voice. Suddenly, he swung an arm around Hoseok’s shoulders like they were old friends and not strangers who had been arguing loudly only an hour prior.

Hoseok blinked, and then burst out laughing, not dodging away at all from Minghao’s half-hearted punch to the chest. Considering Minghao’s fist had simply bounced off Hoseok’s pec like there had been nothing behind it, the punch probably hadn’t fazed him at all. “Good. Looking forward to it.”

 

 

 

 

 

On Junhui’s return to his dorm, there was a flurry of movement from his roommate’s side of the room, a book dropping to the floor, a quick exclamation of, “Oh shit, you’re back—”

Then, Junhui was left standing, still holding his tennis bag, outside the bathroom door which was locked from the inside.

“Jeon Wonwoo, you bastard! You know I need a shower and I have to meet Xuanyi-noona soon, what the hell?!”

“Exactly! I know you need to shower and it takes you ages in the bathroom so obviously I had to get in here first!”

“You couldn’t have waited until after I left? Had the whole place to yourself?”

“No! Just came back from a run.”

“So you were reading? And couldn’t have showered earlier? You know you’re just being a dick!”

In lieu of an actual response, the sound of the shower started up, a whine in the pipes and then the thrum from the spray. Junhui set aside his things so he could text Xuanyi that he’d probably be a bit late. At least she wasn’t the kind of person to yell at him over something like tardiness, but no doubt she’d get him back by embarrassing him somehow. The ominous smiley face emoji at the end of her reply acknowledging his message guaranteed it.

Junhui barged past Wonwoo as soon as the other unlocked the bathroom door again, keeping his hand at the side of his head to avoid looking at Wonwoo’s naked chest. He showered grumbling and glaring at the tiles, and then, with hair still wet, he was rushing out of the dorms and running toward the subway station, praying that the scheduling would line up.

It took 30 minutes and two transfers to get from Pleiades to Rush on a good day, but this late in the evening the trains were fewer, and by the time Junhui arrived at the convenience store just outside Xuanyi’s dorm building, night had completely descended on the city, bathing the streets with darkness and a heavy lethargy from the still warm end to a hot summer day. The cicadas were in full blast when Junhui spotted her, silhouette outlined by the fluorescent streetlights, wearing something nice and undoubtedly expensive just to step outside while Junhui grimaced at his own sweatpants.

“Sorry for being this late,” Junhui said, breath a bit huffy from his jog from the university subway stop. “My roommate was hogging the shower.”

“Your roommate? Is it the same guy you roomed with last year…Dongmin, or something like that?” Xuanyi had a good memory for names, even for people who mattered trivially in her life.

“No, it’s a different person, now, Wonwoo.”

“Wonwoo? The one on the tennis team, right? You said you were friends with him when you were here in middle school?”

He’d forgotten he told Xuanyi about that, and yet she remembered. “Yeah…it’s him.”

“Why the swap?”

“My roommate kept complaining about the alarms for early morning practices, and Wonwoo’s roommate was whining about the same thing, so we figured we’d just room together this year and make things easier.” It had seemed a great idea at the time. But that was because Junhui had been thinking with something other than the brain in his head, so to speak. “He can be kind of an ass though. Come to think of it, he was kind of an ass when we were kids too.”

“Does he remember you?”

It took Junhui a while to put together an answer. “I don’t think so. I mean, we haven’t talked about it. To be fair I definitely remembered him and I didn’t say anything, but when we met again…I knew. And I think I was pretty obvious about it? But he didn’t react or anything, so that’s why I don’t think he remembers.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, that was years ago and we knew each other for like two or three years max.”

All the years he’d spent in Korea as a grade schooler, all the years that made him come running back as soon as he had a chance again.

“I think that’s cute! It’s like fate.”

“It’s fate that I had to make noona wait for me?”

“No, I mean, it must be fate that you’re in the same school again. Doesn’t it seem like a destined-to-be kind of thing? And although I’m a tiiiiiiny bit older than you, we’re young, and so, at this hour? The night is still young too.” Xuanyi laughed, mostly to herself, and then held out the large canvas bag in her hands.

Junhui took it from her gratefully and carefully steered the conversation in a different direction. “Yeah, well, sorry you also had to meet my mom.”

“Oh Junhui, your mom was very sweet. Made me sit down and eat before she let me go and everything.”

“Of course she’s sweet, she’s my mom. I love her, but she really didn’t need to send all this over.” Junhui stretched the handles of the bag apart and peered down. Without much lighting, he couldn’t make out more than a hairbrush. “Honestly, I could have bought replacements for this stuff here but I think she just wanted an excuse to send me herbal tea.”

“That’s even cuter. I can understand her, you know. She’s worried, and when you’re this far away she can’t do much to support you other than send you a care package here and there.”

“Yeah but she made you bring it from China. That’s…” Junhui shook his head, feeling a weird mix of gratitude and exasperation.

“Well, I had to bring me and my stuff here from China too so it wasn’t an extra trip,” Xuanyi said, voice very final sounding. “I told you there was a favour you could do for me in return, didn’t I?”

“Oh, right. What was it? How can I help?”

“Sooo~ I have a friend, I think of her as a little sister really, our parents are close and we went to the same boarding school in Shanghai. She’s starting at Pleiades this year. I think she plays tennis too?”

“Great, another rich heiress,” Junhui said teasingly. He bounced on his toes as he spoke, the contents of the bag rhythmically hitting his shins.

Xuanyi looked at him. “Like your dad and stepdad aren’t both making bank. Which reminds me, given your stepdad and my father are friends, is it really that weird that I met your mom?”

“Point taken. You were saying?”

“Right, so her name is Zhou Jieqiong. You’ll look after her, won’t you? I’d rather do it myself but it’s a bit harder to keep an eye on things when we don’t go to the same school.”

“Sure, big sis, I’ll be part of your group of adopted international students.”

“Is that what it is?” Xuanyi smiled. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

 

 

 

 

 

The summer vacation before Junhui’s third year of university sputtered to a close. Hot and lazy days dragged in with them dark and heavy storm clouds, the torrential rain and flashes of lightning trapping everyone indoors like an atmospheric representation of the impending semester, stripping students of their freedom. Junhui swore that the people in the cafeteria and dotting the hallways of their building were moving in slow motion.

“Pathetic fallacy,” Wonwoo muttered, fingers barely hanging onto his can of cheap beer.

“What’s that?”

“Never mind.” Wonwoo took a long drink, leaving Junhui to dwell on the unfamiliar phrase alone.

Sometime around noon Wonwoo had ordered in fried chicken.

“I don’t think eating this kind of stuff right before practices start up again is a good idea.”

“I did _cardio_ yesterday. I’m so fit. And we have to eat it now, before practice starts again, since Coach would kill us if we were doing _chimaek_ during the actual season.” The corners of Wonwoo’s lips had lifted and he tilted his chin up knowingly. “You’re not saying ‘no’, Junnie, you can’t fool me.”

Wonwoo then offered to pay half of Junhui’s share if he’d go downstairs to pick it up from the deliverer, which Junhui accepted less because he wasn’t willing to part with his money and more because Wonwoo would spend the entire meal time whining if he’d had to do any physical labour. They’d put on rerun matches from the US open to watch while they ate, neither of them having wanted to wake up early to catch them live. After washing their fingers of sauce and cracking open their second cans of _Hite_ , they’d sprawled out in their room, Wonwoo on his bed with his shoulder against the wall and legs spread before him, Junhui curled up on the floor, his head leaning against his own mattress and beer at his feet.

Junhui wasn’t a fan of pale lager, or at least, not a fan of the brands he’d ever tried which were all ridiculously cheap. But even with the low alcohol content, the drink was dulling the brutality of Djokovic’s finishers, cornering the Russian whose name he could neither pronounce nor remember.

“I can’t believe class hasn’t even started yet and I’m already turning to the bottle,” Wonwoo moaned, his head hitting the wall after one of Nole’s backhands went straight into the net. Well, Junhui supposed, you couldn’t win every point.

“I can’t believe class hasn’t started yet and I’m already feeling homicidal tendencies toward my roommate.”

“Is this about the showering thing? You’re still mad?”

Junhui wasn’t really angry, but he got some vague amusement out of keeping up the act. “Yes, it’s about the showering thing! You just wait, the next time you have to meet a girl I’ll lock you in the closet for half an hour and you can tell me if you’re mad or not yourself.”

Wonwoo snorted. “Please, you’re not dating Xuanyi.”

“Of course not, I can’t date girls! Girls are scary! And that’s exactly my point…Girls are scary!!!!”

That earned a snicker from Wonwoo, who tried to cover up his laughter with the hand holding his beer. “You’re just a regular casanova, aren’t you? And look, you probably wouldn’t have been late if you just showered faster. You spent, like, forty minutes in there. What can you even do in the shower for half an hour? Get friendly with your right hand? Surely not for that long.”

“Are you snubbing my stamina?” Junhui sniffed and took a pointed sip of his drink before turning his nose to the side. “And I’ll have you know I jack off with my left hand, thank you very much.”

“What? What?” Wonwoo frowned prettily at his beer can. “Aren’t you right handed?”

“Exactly. So I do everything that’s not writing or playing tennis with the left. Even extra sets of dumbbell curls or whatever. Your right arm is holding a racket all day long, it’s bound to get stronger than your left, right? If you don’t try to balance the two you’ll look all asymmetrical.” Junhui flexed each of his arms in turn just to test them out, and sure enough, his arms were reasonably similar sized. It wasn’t that weird of a theory.

“Now I know you’re just fucking with me. You don’t jack off with your left hand. There’s no way.”

“I’m being serious. What you do want me to do? Show you?” Junhui scoffed and finished the last dredges of his beer. He tossed the empty can up and it sailed in an arc in the air before landing in their garbage bin.

“Yeah, do it.”

“What?!” If Junhui were still drinking, he’d definitely have choked.

Wonwoo stood up, chucked his own empty can into the bin and ambled over to Junhui’s bed without missing a beat. He made himself right at home on the mattress without so much as a by-your-leave, and patted the space beside him as indication for Junhui to sit there instead of on the floor.

“Are you drunk?”

“I had two beers. I’m walking fine, talking fine, and could recite to you the opening to _Three Kingdoms_ , if you’d like,” Wonwoo said calmly, peeling off his shorts and tossing them over to his side of the room.

Junhui swallowed and tried not to stare. “Threatening me with the battle of Red Cliffs is only to give me performance pressure, not assurance of consent.”

“Well, far be it for me to make you nervous.” Wonwoo’s voice dripped with salacity. “I’m sober enough to remember this tomorrow and feel in control enough to know what I want. So the real question is, do _you_ wanna prove it, masturbation southpaw? Gonna get me off real good?”

Thing was, Junhui’s mind had arrived at its decision about three questions back, as soon as Wonwoo had sat down on his bed, whether the rest of his brain would let him pursue said choice or not. It was taking a lot of self-control, deep-breathing, and general trepidation for him not to touch his own semi just at the thought of Wonwoo’s cock. He shifted until he was comfortable, sitting so he was mostly facing Wonwoo’s side, where it was easier to see his face and reach between his legs at the same time. Junhui had one foot on the floor, the other on the bed behind Wonwoo, knee bent.

“You have lube around right?” Wonwoo asked, startling Junhui into snatching his hand back, millimetres before he was about to …do the deed, and then proceeded to lean over and rummage through Junhui’s bedside drawers. “Well, don’t know if you really need it if you jack off for half an hour in the showers all the time.”

“Do you last for half an hour when you’re masturbating?” Junhui asked incredulously. “And every single day?”

“Damn, Junnie, didn’t know you had it in ya,” Wonwoo teased, before dropping the bottle and some tissues on the bed. “Okay, ready, all yours.”

When Junhui first cupped around him over his boxers, Wonwoo was still soft, and there was something about the warmth between their skin, untempered by the thin layer of fabric, something intimate that undid Junhui’s resolve.

“Are you shy?”

Junhui couldn’t even reply. He thought he was going to explode from how hot his face felt, or at least tear his arm out of his shoulder trying to pull back from Wonwoo.

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” Wonwoo said roughly.

“Yeah but seeing is different from feeling,” Junhui said, voice quiet, eyes focused.

It seemed to take longer than it took to get himself off. Junhui couldn’t tell if that was because perception was skewed when you were going through the motions but not feeling anything yourself, or if there was an actual time difference. Wonwoo possessed the decency to give some warning when he was close so as to not end up spilling all over Junhui’s sheets, but then left him to clean up alone, sprawled back on Junhui’s bed like it was his own.

“You know,” Wonwoo said, still coming down from the high after Junhui had returned from washing off his fingers, “this _does_ explain why your double-handed shots are so well controlled.”

 

 

 

 

 

They didn’t talk about it afterward. Eventually Wonwoo got up, they finished watching Djokovic win his match, unforced errors notwithstanding, watched Nadal win his match against another unseeded Russian, went down for a dinner that had real vegetables, and then did fuck all else for the rest of the night (or, Junhui watched web dramas and Wonwoo read something or another before jotting a mess of notes down in his notebook).

In the morning, Junhui woke Wonwoo up for practice by prodding at him in the shoulder.

Wonwoo’s single complaint was to ask, “Isn’t it a bit cruel to put first practice on same day as first day of class?”

“Some schools start practices before classes do. You planning on making nationals with that attitude?”

And then the rest of the walk toward the courts was spent in an uncomplicated silence.

It wasn’t like Junhui really wanted to talk about it. It wasn’t even like if he did, he’d know what to say. The whole ordeal sounded like a university cliché, guy has a crush on one person for what amounts functionally to his entire adulthood, guy gets his crush off, crush seems to enjoy it, neither mentions it afterward.

Early on in first year, Xuanyi had sternly advised Junhui not to get involved with anyone in the same dorm. “Same building is okay if you have quick reflexes, but do not do anything with anyone on the same floor. Horrible. Run into them all the time afterward, awkward trying to get to class, awkward just running to grab lunch. You can screw whoever you like other than that, as long as you’re safe about it.”

She’d probably be giving Junhui her best alarmed expression if she knew he fooled around with his _roommate_ of all people, eyes spread super wide and eyelashes sticking up. The way he saw it though, Junhui thought it all turned out kinda nice.

Nice, of course, didn’t last.

With last year’s fourth years graduated and still a week remaining before try-outs for the team would begin, the courts were a little emptier than usual when they got to practice. What it lacked in numbers the team made up for in energy, a slight buzz of excitement at a new season paired with puffy eyes and slouched shoulders, teammates unused to the early mornings.

“Hope you actually followed your summer regimens this year,” Seungcheol called out mildly once the last of them had filed out of the change rooms. “And if you didn’t, well, you’ll suffer.”

A few chuckles came from the second years, but the older students knew their captain wasn’t kidding. “Paced laps to start today, the managers will sort out groups, and once you have your heat you can start warm-ups. Two minute laps for as long as you can go. First eight out will immediately start shuttle sprints on the courts, last eight standing get to go straight to the showers. Let’s get going!”

This was the traditional start every year, meant to shame anyone who hadn’t kept themselves in shape during the off season. It also gave the coaches a chance to spot anyone who had really changed over the summer, filled out, gotten faster, that kind of thing, helped to give them a heads-up before assignments were dished out. Endurance competitions like this burned Junhui’s chest, although the competition tended to yield better results than running ad libitum.

“Junhui, hang on, I want to talk to you about something,” Seungcheol said, putting a hand on Junhui’s shoulder.

He waited until the others had mostly dispersed before leading Junhui in the other direction, doing knee-ups so they could warm up while they spoke.

“So, I don’t know how to put this lightly, and I’m just going to tell you that Dongjinnie transferred out.”

“Transferred out?”

“Yeah. His parents wanted him to stop with the athletics and finish his degree at one of the SKY schools. You know they already pushed him up a few grades for his age, so I guess it’s not that out of line from them, but, at any rate, he’s not going to be playing with us anyway.”

Junhui stared at Seungcheol. “Okay.”

Seungcheol peered closely back. “I wanted to let you know. You two were a shoo-in for second doubles this year but it’ll be okay without him too. Don’t worry. We’ll find you a different partner. Worst case scenario, we’ll put you and Soonyoung on first doubles even if we have to field a weaker second doubles team so we can guarantee at least one win.”

“Soonyoung plays better with Seokmin and you know it, captain.”

Seungcheol sighed. His voice, as it had been during their entire conversation, was warm and gentle. “We might not have a choice. There’s a few diamonds in the rough among the second stringers so I think we’ll find someone…but if not, well, we’ll consider our options.”

“Alright. Thanks for letting me know, hyung.”

Seungcheol clapped Junhui on the back and then jogged over to the others, the whistle hanging around his neck now held loosely between his teeth.

Coach Han, whom Junhui hadn’t seen until now, was standing by the gate with his own whistle ready, a manager with a stopwatch and clipboard by his side. “First heat on the line!”

Junhui fell into the third and last group with the others who were slated for first string this year with a tension headache starting to build between his temples. Soonyoung was regaling them with the story of how he got the new scar lining his left calf while at his tree planting volunteer position over the summer, and Seokmin was gaping at the size of the cut with his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Junhui winced at the pair of them and looked away.

“So what you’re telling us,” Jihoon said without much interest, “is you got hurt because you were an idiot. As usual.”

That sparked its own round of laughter, and Junhui allowed himself to look back at the group. They hadn’t even started running yet and there was some kind of stitch in his side already, making it hard to breathe. He sould be laughing with them, arm hanging off of Dongjin’s shoulders, their heads tilted together. As usual.

But instead, the spaces beside him were all empty, Junhui’s stomach felt empty, and his head and heart felt tight and over full.

From the other side of Soonyoung, Wonwoo’s eyes found Junhui’s gaze. They flickered over to Seungcheol and then back but Wonwoo said nothing, the indulgent smile remaining as an aftermath of Jihoon’s teasing still frozen on his face.

Junhui bent down to retie his perfectly knotted shoelaces.

 

 

 

 

 

In first year, all of the seniors said classes would get better in the upper years because early on you could only do dry basics whereas by the end you could specialize. Second year, Junhui was convinced that was said as a hoax to trick underclassmen into suffering with them through hellish lectures at the worst possible hours. This year, just looking at his schedule made it obvious that the classes would be better. Usually avoiding classes during regular afternoon practice times required heavy front loading several days a week, but this year the offset resulted in a nicely spread out timetable.

Apart from the scheduling, the first week of classes revealed themselves to be a much more productive process than in years past. Back then professors seemed like they wanted to be anywhere instead of at the front of the lecture hall, and no one really cared about what they were studying. Junhui’s courses weren’t any easier, but at least they were finally interesting and that was enough to make them _feel_ easier. So much so that while getting absorbed by the readings for the week, Junhui had lost track of time and was so startled by his phone ringing on Saturday afternoon he’d almost fallen back off his chair.

“Hey, gonna take a call. You want me to go outside?”

Wonwoo hadn’t looked up from his work and waved a hand dismissively, which Junhui took as permission to stay inside their room.

“Were you sleeping?” was the first thing Junhui’s mother said after he finally slid his thumb across the phone screen.

“No, I was just doing some work. How are you?” Reverting back to Mandarin was something Junhui slipped into easily for their Saturday afternoon catch-ups, especially coming back from the summer, but as the years went on the switch felt less and less like coming home. Or, Korean was starting to feel less and less foreign.

“Worried! I’m very concerned about you living over there on your own, you know, I could—”

“Mom, I survived here alone when I was eleven, I think I’ll be okay surviving here in my twenties.”

His mother tsked. “That’s different. You weren’t alone back then, since your aunt was looking after you. There’s no one taking care of you now, so of course I’m worried.”

“I’m more worried about you. Taking the train by yourself to Shanghai carrying such a heavy bag? There was no need.”

“Of course there was a need—right! That girl I met, she seemed very nice. Is she keeping an eye on you then?”

“We don’t even go to the same school, mom, but yeah, I guess.”

They talked for a few minutes more, things like what Junhui’s eating, how the weather is back in Shenzhen, his step-father working overtime. “By the way, the tennis trip is going on the yearly start of term training trip next week so I probably can’t call.”

“That’s fine, I can talk to you the week after that as long as you promise you’ll look after yourself.”

“Sure, mom.”

After he hung up, Junhui shot a quick apology to Wonwoo for disrupting the silence, but got another dismissive hand wave.

“Did you tell her about needing a new doubles partner?” Wonwoo asked, spinning around in his chair so that he was hanging over the back, facing Junhui who was leaning against the foot of his bed.

“No? Why would I?”

“I dunno. Seems like something I would mention, if I were in the sort of relationship with my mother where we held civil conversation once a week.”

Junhui blinked. But Wonwoo looked away and didn’t seem open to fielding questions. “She’s already worrying too much. If I mentioned it she’d just get more stressed for no reason. It’s not a big deal.”

“Well, have you given it any thought?”

No. In fact, Junhui had been doing the exact opposite. Thinking about team selection made him uneasy on a good year, when he already knew the likely outcome. This year, it was something he didn’t want to touch, just didn’t. And he’d been doing a fine job of avoiding the subject until Wonwoo shoved it in his face.

“Okay… _I_ ’ve been doing some thinking,” Wonwoo said. “I think you should go through the second stringers and see if you can find someone to partner with, lest a pair of them end up stealing your spot.”

“It’ll be fine,” Junhui said, sounding unsure himself.

“No it won’t! Look, you have to play first string this year, with me— I mean, with us. Because we’ve been planning the team trips all summer, and things will be royally fucked up if you’re not there.”

“Okay, I get it, I’ll be better.” Junhui sighed. They were probably supposed to be comforting words but all he got out of them was a greater sense of foreboding and unnerving pressure. “Aren’t you going to get back to studying, Mr. _summa cum laude_?”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes. “Someone forgot to send out the memo to profs that first week back is supposed to be light. You’re supposed to ease back into regular coursework, not run full tilt from the get go.”

“If the guy with the perfect academic record is struggling, I wonder how hard it must be for the peasant folk.”

“Don’t joke. It’s just because we’re taking different stuff now. Trust me, no one wants to learn about taxation, and you’re just lucky you don’t have to.”

In first and second year, Junhui and Wonwoo shared an average of three classes a semester, things like intro polisci and economics, a history course or two tossed somewhere in there. But Junhui’s third and fourth year IR courses were heavy on the foreign policy and international studies, while Wonwoo’s pre-law track focused on criminal justice and his English major required more composition and literature. A heavier workload, more readings, and often drier subject material. Junhui was a good student, but Wonwoo was a top 2% kind of good student.

“If you take a break from studying taxation, is that called tax evasion?”

Wonwoo snorted and quickly covered his laughter. “Don’t. Junnie, you’re not funny.”

“Okay, fine! Are you taking a break then? Wanna go hit some balls?”

With his hand still over his mouth, Wonwoo spared a glance out the window before offering Junhui a cheeky look. “Outside? There’s a perfectly good pair of balls you can hit indoors, you know.”

“Jeez, Wonwoo, and you tell me _my_ humour’s bad. That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Is that a yes or no?”

“Do you _want_ me to get you off? Is the stress getting to you or something?”

“Seems unfair if I’m always on the receiving end though. Think it’s your turn today, actually. If you want, I mean.”

“I’m not going to say no, but I’m not going to feel like you shortchanged me if you don’t.”

Wonwoo didn’t say yes, but he did get up, take a step forward, and generally go straight for Junhui’s dick.

 

 

 

 

 

“Junhui! Junhui!! Moon! Jun! Hwi!”

He turned toward the source of the voice calling his name to spot Minghao sprinting down the stairs of the economics building toward him.

“Hey?”

“Hi,” Minghao said quickly, not at all out of breath despite the exertion. “You’re headed to practice now right?”

“Um, yeah, well to grab my stuff,” Junhui said, although really he was hoping to run to the convenience store to grab a protein bar before heading to his dorm because he was starving, but it was all the same to him.

“Okay, can I talk to you about something on the way there? I’ll try to be quick.”

“Sure.” Junhui gestured beside him and the two set off past the main entrance to exit through the side door that led to the back campus quad, a faster route to get to the dormitories. “What is it?”

“The rumour mill has it that you need a doubles partner…” Minghao trailed off.

“You thought about talking to me about this and the best you came up with was ‘the rumour mill’.”

“Well, I can’t remember who I heard it from, okay?” Minghao said defensively. “But I was thinking, we made a good pair that time over the summer, right?”

“Right…” Junhui saw where Minghao was going, but at the same time, he didn’t see at all.

“So do you want to try out being partners?”

Junhui frowned. “You’re a singles player.”

“I was. Doesn’t mean I can’t try something new.”

“People who play singles for years usually hate the idea of switching full time into doubles. I don’t get it. What’s motivating this?”

“Do you remember what the two guys said, when we were playing over the summer? Look, I can’t make it onto first string singles this year. Have you looked at the team? They all have nicknames. Jihoon-hyung’s known even outside our school as ‘the prodigy’ and everyone knows he’d be doing well as a pro if he wasn’t so dead set on becoming a doctor. Captain’s nickname is literally ‘strong arm’, and other power players are scared to face him. And Wonwoo-hyung is known as ‘the genius’. After Seungcheol-hyung graduates, there’s only going to be one singles spot open, and I’m not even the second best player in my year. That means my only shot at first string would be in fourth year, but with doubles, there’s a chance I could make it now.”

“That’s…pretty forward thinking,” Junhui admitted. It was a pretty convincing speech. “But doubles isn’t just two-person singles. Like, you’d have to learn a whole new way of playing—”

“—I know.” Minghao flipped his backpack around to in front of his chest, quickly unzipped it, and pulled out two tennis books, written in Chinese. “I’ve been reading, and I’m a quick learner. Gimme a shot, _ge_?” Which was cheating. Playing the brothers together in a foreign country card was absolutely cheating.

But it was also such a nice solution to Junhui’s problem.

“Fine. We’ll see. Let’s try it out at the moun~tain~ M~T~” Junhui said, holding his arms up above his head so his hands were making a point.

Minghao blinked. “Are you putting your hands like that to represent a mountain?”

“Yep,” Junhui agreed, dancing from foot to foot, arms still up in the shape of a triangle.

“Okay,” Minghao said, staring. He took a deep breath. “O…kay.”

 

 

 

 

 

To get to the training camp lodge early enough to take advantage of the tennis facilities for the full two days that they were there, the bus was scheduled to leave at six in the morning, which meant waking up closer to five. For Wonwoo, who had been up until nearly two playing a horror game on his computer, that meant a total of four hours of sleep while Junhui had covered his ears with headphones and closed his eyes early in the evening to block out the creepy alien graphics and background breathing noises. Of course, that also meant Wonwoo struggled to wake up, and it took Junhui hauling him by the waist to get him onto the bus at all.

On the other hand, Junhui happily gave heads up to a sleepy Seungcheol about the possibility of a new doubles partner, and sweetly documented Jihoon’s fear and discomfort at having the captain of the girls’ team take the empty seat next to him. It was Jihoon’s own fault for glaring away anyone else who might have wanted to take the vacant spot, and Nayoung-noona wasn’t exactly someone you could glare away, not when she had an intimidating expression half the time herself.

The rest of the day was not nearly as enjoyable as the scenic bus ride.

Their first day up involved no games, just drills. As soon as their stuff was moved from the bus to the cabin, they were shepherded off to the courts for dexterity drills, change of direction drills, and then challenge rallies in the doubles’ alley.

“20 hits, 10 per person. Since it’s the start of the season, we’ll be nice and give you three balls to get there. Any ball that goes out of bounds or doesn’t cross the net is dead. If you don’t make it to 20, you’re lining up by the gate to get the penalty. If you’re aiming for first string, strict backhands only!”

“Is the penalty shuttle sprints again? I’ve had enough conditioning to last me a lifetime,” Minghao muttered.

Junhui looked over to the fence, where Jeonghan had appeared, hands on his hips and a glint in his eye while he smiled out at the scene before him.

Jeonghan-hyung wasn’t strictly _on_ the tennis team, but he was definitely a part of it. Technically, he was around because he was one of Seungcheol’s friends, and his real role was the newspaper club sports correspondent, or something like that. Apparently Jeonghan was so essential to the operation of the school paper that he had been voted unanimously to the position of editor-in-chief for his fourth year, but Junhui had never actually seen him anywhere near their offices.

Similarly, Junhui had never seen Jeonghan write anything about the tennis club, although articles and photographs would turn up under his name. As far as the rest of the team members were concerned, Jeonghan’s purpose was to bring pain and misery to everyone through his highly creative methods of punishment.

“I think it’s going to be worse.” Junhui tapped on his lips. “Let’s just try 20 balls in the lines. Good precision practice, right?”

“Worse than shuttle sprints?” Minghao asked, tossing for an underhanded backhand to begin.

They made it all the way to 17 hits on their third try, at which point Minghao’s ball skimmed the net and landed just out of Junhui’s reach. The manager officiating their rally picked up the offending ball and smiled at both of them before pointing toward the table that had been set up to the side, lined with clear cups of some yellow liquid, neon enough to resemble the colour of a tennis ball.

“One drink each,” Jeonghan said, slithering up behind them with an eerily serene expression.

“Can’t he take both mine and his since he was the one who messed up?” came Wonwoo’s voice, pointing an accusing thumb at Soonyoung.

“Be a good sport, man,” Soonyoung muttered, before bravely picking up a cup and taking a sip. Almost as soon as the liquid touched his lips, the colour drained from his face.

“Jeo…Jeonghan…hyung…is this even legal? What are you making us drink?”

Rather than try to suffer slowly, Wonwoo had knocked back his entire penalty and then careened straight into the fence, using it to support his weight while the hands around his stomach made it obvious he was trying very hard not to puke.

“What is this, Junhui?” Minghao hissed, tugging on the back of his shirt. “I didn’t come here to die.”

“You won’t die,” Jeonghan said pleasantly. “Or, at least, I don’t think you will.”

Junhui good-naturedly clinked his plastic cup against Minghao’s and then gave Jeonghan a quick salute before tipping the contents down his throat.

The best way to describe the drink would be to compare it to pure lemon juice with wasabi mixed in. It was spicy and sour and cleared all of Junhui’s sinuses to a level he didn’t know they could reach. But there was also something sugary in the mixture, that left a light pleasant aftertaste, and he found the whole thing refreshing. “It’s not bad, Jeonghan-hyung.”

“Not bad?” Minghao asked, gagging. He’d only managed about half of his with his nose plugged, and he was looking distinctly green around the edges.

“Hey,” Soonyoung warbled weakly, toeing a body on the ground.

Jihoon had almost succeeded in the challenge with Nayoung-noona, until at the last minute a ball from another pair rolled onto their court and sent their own bouncing off in the wrong direction. He had taken the penalty drink and, it seemed, promptly fainted.

“Do you think we should take him to medical?”

 

 

 

 

 

For the majority of the team, the lemon-cayenne mixture was the worst part of the day. For Junhui, it was the dreaded toxic sludge ubiquitous in the late night bonding games, made with whatever gross hard liqueurs were on sale at the time Jeonghan dragged Seungcheol to the store.

If Junhui was not a fan of pale lager, he actively hated hard alcohol, for the precise reasons he found the penalty drink tolerable. Alcohol, at the content per volume in that horrific bowl, didn’t rejuvenate the taste buds. It burned them clean off, until he was just breathing out the fumes through his nostrils.

But in some ways, drinking was the lesser of two evils.

Since practices for the teams were divided into blocks, MTs usually meant integration activities spanning across the strings and sexes. Inevitably, bonding ‘required’ some ridiculous hetero ‘do or drink’ dares, hence the unenviable position he now found himself in, clutching the metal pail while fortifying his insides for the battle to come. Under Jeonghan’s watchful eye, Junhui swallowed down a mouthful of liquid fire.

“You didn’t have to drink you know. It would have been fine, like kissing your sister.” Jieqiong said all this matter-of-factly, and then flipped all her hair to the side of her neck. “I’ve known Xuanyi since I was five, she wouldn’t introduce a guy to me who would try something funny.”

Junhui spluttered and coughed for a few moments, trying to get the taste of something like paint stripper out of his mouth. “Yeah, well,” Junhui grumbled, “Xuanyi would make a big deal out of it anyway. She drags me around by the ear enough as it is, it’s easier not to give her any more fodder.”

Jieqiong laughed. “I can see why she likes you.” She patted his knee. “Very obedient.”

“Was…” Junhui tapped the fingers of his left hand against his lower lip, “was that supposed to be a compliment or an insult?”

“Maybe a little bit of both?” She looked at him, amused. “I’m not usually into the submissive type, but if you were a girl I might have even considered you. Bizarrely cute, in a way.”

“You can’t just say that about people,” Junhui said defensively. “I’m older than you! By two years!”

“Mm…you don’t really seem like it.” Jieqiong shook her head, a phoney smile spread placatingly across thin lips.

Junhui huffed, perhaps a little childishly and thereby proving her point. With arms crossed he turned the other way, to where the alcohol had travelled along the circle and left behind a wake of sputtering or red-faced losers. These weren’t the kind of games people won, they were the kind of games people used as an excuse to get plastered, or watch other people do foolish drunken things.

From his side, Jieqiong inhaled sharply, making enough of a commotion that Junhui’s attention was drawn away from where Jihoon had turned into the same colour as a plump tomato after practically chugging rather than dare so much as look as Nayoung-noona. He glanced right at her and then left, to see what she was glaring at.

“That asshole better be drinking,” she said, voice sweet and dark like a bitter chocolate, low enough that only Junhui could hear her.

“Girlfriend?” Junhui asked mildly. The girl in question sat with her arms around her knees, dark-haired bob, narrow face, large rounded eyes. Her face, or the expression she was making anyway, gave off the impression of someone who could think up 632 ways to kill you with the objects in the room on the spot, but her body language read surprisingly shy.

Jieqiong made a noise like a tetchy cat. “Not…yet…”

To the left of the girl sat Wonwoo, fingers rested loosely on the outer rim of the bowl in front of him, back slouched so far down he was the same height as the girl. Thoughts of his roommate’s shitty posture flew to the wind when Wonwoo’s gaze lifted from the alcohol directly to Junhui’s eyes. That one look sucked the air out of the room, and out of Junhui’s lungs, Wonwoo’s eyes like a pair of magnets and Junhui couldn’t look away, couldn’t breathe.

Jieqiong was still going. “Give me an hour or two and ask me that question again. The answer will either become yes or indeterminable because I’m riding in the backseat of a police car arrested for the manslaughter of that trash bag.”

She hadn’t needed to worry. Wonwoo carefully lifted the drink to his lips and didn’t waste a drop. The whole time he continued to stare calmly at Junhui, who stared back with a rising tide in his stomach, the ebb and flow crashing against his insides in time with the bob of Wonwoo’s Adam’s apple from each swallow.

“Since when did Jeon Wonwoo get too scared to kiss girls?” Soonyoung heckled, making kissy faces into the air.

“Go fuck yourself,” Wonwoo replied, voice deadpan. He wiped his lips on the back of his sleeve before releasing eye contact with Junhui at last.

“Murder,” Junhui said hoarsely. After clearing his throat, he tried again. “That’d legally be considered murder, not manslaughter. And is it just me, or is it really warm in here?” He tugged at the collar of his shirt.

“Does the right legal term really matter? Anyway, he didn’t kiss her so whatever.”

“Thank god, or Xuanyi would have castrated me for letting you end up in jail,” Junhui joked in a strangely high-pitched tone.

“You say that like she wouldn’t be helping me hide the body. And forcing you to do the same.”

Junhui laughed a watery sort of laugh. Murder was manslaughter with malice. He understood the meaning of that, even if sometimes the difference was a fine line in court. What he didn’t understand was what it meant when the guy you exchange handjobs with chooses not to kiss the girl.

 

 

 

 

 

“I think it’s pretty promising. You won, what, nine out of ten practice sets? I think Coach likes the look of things. Everyone was just just surprised you wanted to play doubles, kid,” Seungcheol said, cuffing the back of Minghao’s head.

Minghao smiled. “Yeah, I know. It wasn’t planned, but I definitely want to.”

“We’ll test things out at the ranking tournament, and if you end up one of the top two pairs, see how things go at districts. The way I see it though…welcome to first string.” Seungcheol smiled and waved them back off to practice.

“I’ve never seen you so deferential,” Junhui noted, holding his racket behind his shoulders.

“He’s the captain. You’re…” Minghao looked at him like he was assessing a gum wrapper on the ground that hadn’t quite made it to the garbage can.

“So mean! And after I agreed to take you under my wing!” Junhui leaned over to pinch Minghao’s cheek and stretch it sideways. “Aren’t you happy things worked out? We’re going to be a killer doubles team, little Haohao!”

“Ugh.” Minghao shouldered Junhui away, batting half-heartedly at the assault to his face. “Please never call me that again.”

“Why? It’s a cute nickname.”

Minghao rolled his eyes and pulled ahead, to where one of the managers was dishing out instructions for the day. Doubles players were working on volley drills, managers feeding balls that sent them on a wild goose chase all the while expecting their returns to land in the appropriately ordered boxes, marked off by miniature pylons.

Given that Minghao held his own as a singles player who specialized in net play, Junhui didn’t think going for millimetre accuracy with their volleys was as important to them now as working on pair techniques. They were using fairly rudimentary court coverage practice in their games during the training camp, enough to squeak by, but easy to break through in a three-set match. Learning each other’s body language, developing offensive plays and defensive strategies so that they could comfortably work together in a competition setting.

Junhui elbowed Minghao a bit to get his attention, but the other side-stepped away, eyes focused intensely on the manager at the net.

It wasn’t a big deal. Junhui could bring it up tomorrow or something. He looked skyward, stopped himself from gnawing at his lower lip, and pushed his fingers between the spaces of his racket strings, squeezing absent-mindedly at the tension there and wondering how Dongjin was doing.

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of practice, Jeonghan was standing by the gate with his messenger bag, handing out cups of water to the thirsty players. Knowing Jeonghan-hyung, they were definitely not actually filled with water.

“Ah, you have to keep up your energy! Drink up and you’ll feel better tomorrow~”

Whether or not that claim held true, Jeonghan’s poison certainly wasn’t helping anyone feel better today. There was a whole haggle of first years doubled over along the fence outside, clutching at their mouths, their throats, their stomachs. The stronger ones stood tall and bit back their grimaces, but the weaker ones were lying on the ground begging for water.

“Kwon Soonyoung!” Jeonghan yelled, “You’re not planning on dumping out a heartfelt gift from your upperclassman are you?!”

Soonyoung quickly righted his hand, eyes moving side-to-side shiftily to pretend he hadn’t planned on tossing the drink into the nearest lawn. “Of course not, Jeonghan-hyung, what kind of man do you take me to be?” He smiled and giggled nervously, before turning to stare morosely and deeply into the clear plastic cup.

In the time Jeonghan was distracted, Junhui swiped Wonwoo’s drink from his hand, knocked the whole thing back, and replaced the cup in his grip, cool as you like before picking one up for himself.

“Wonwoo-goon! You finished yours. Did you like it?”

Wonwoo blinked blankly, and didn’t reply, crumpling the plastic in his grip and tossing it into the recycling bin brought out for cup disposal.

Junhui, who had finished his own drink by this time, shot a smile and a victory sign at Jeonghan. “Delicious, hyung. Apple cider vinegar right? My mom loves this stuff as a health thing.”

Jeonghan beamed and reached out to pat Junhui’s head. “This is why you’re my favourite underclassman, you know?”

For some reason, Jieqiong’s voice calling him obedient echoed in Junhui’s head.

The thought was knocked away by Wonwoo’s fingers gripping around Junhui’s elbow, followed by a light squeeze that in Wonwoo language might have meant a ‘thank you’. The touch, in conjunction with Junhui thinking about Jieqiong and last weekend’s training camp, reminded Junhui of the uncomfortable look they’d shared, gone undiscussed the same way everything about their relationship not strictly the norm for roommates went undiscussed. It was like the act of Wonwoo’s hand wrapped around Junhui’s arm transferred to his neck, and he could feel his throat closing in, making it hard to swallow.

“God, that thing was sour,” Soonyoung choked out, and Junhui’s airway returned to normal. “How the hell did you two survive that unscathed?”

Wonwoo’s eyes slid sideways to look at Junhui and then he shrugged noncommittally.

“You have to learn to appreciate fine tastes,” Junhui said lightly.

Soonyoung snorted. “You willingly volunteered to switch roommates to live with Wonwoo, I’m not sure you have any taste.”

Without missing a beat, Wonwoo said, “We all slept in the same room last weekend. Only one of us was snoring, Soonyoung, and it sure as hell wasn’t me.”

“It’s a doubles thing, you wouldn’t understand.” Soonyoung made a derisive face and threw an arm around Junhui’s shoulders. “Right Junhui?”

Junhui didn’t offer any comment, in fear of offending either party.

“Seokgu does the sleeptalking, so I’m in charge of the snoring and sleepwalking. It’s a ba-lance,” Soonyoung said, drawing out the last word. “Not that singles supremacists would get it, doing…whatever it is you guys did all practice.”

“Drills,” Wonwoo supplied helpfully, like that wasn’t what all of them did. “Why, do you doubles players have some special regimen?” He asked this with his nostrils flared and eyes mocking.

“Course,” Junhui said lightly. “New year, new partner, fresh meat to break in.”

Soonyoung laughed, and Junhui forced out a giggle of his own. “Speak for yourself, Moon Joon.”

Wonwoo’s steps slowed, allowing Soonyoung ahead of him. “Junnie?” He looked at him, eyes sincere, voice gentle, but everything about his demeanour probing at sore spots Junhui just wanted to heal with time.

Junhui smoothly swung his arm away, not letting his elbow be caught by Wonwoo’s fingers a second time, and still it felt like he was falling.

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday morning, Junhui woke before his alarm sounded, set close to noon for a rare chance to sleep in. He rolled around, awake, trying to get comfortable and fall back asleep for half an hour before giving up and sliding out of bed. In the bed across from his, Wonwoo was still conked out, half laying on his side, half on his stomach, his hands tucked under his pillow. Junhui looked at him, resisted the urge to straighten out the thin blanket draped over Wonwoo’s legs and then headed to the bathroom.

The weight room at any university gym on a Saturday morning felt emptier than usual, what with its normal inhabitants recovering from hangovers or hugging toilet bowls. Junhui was getting over his own emotional hangover, a malaise that had stuck with him for a week, ever since the training camp, and it seemed a good idea to pound the ache away on the bench with his barbell loaded.

“Need a spot?”

Junhui nearly dropped the 45 pound plate in his hands at the sound of Soonyoung’s voice, brighter than it ever sounded during regular morning practices.

“What are you doing here?”

“Procrastinating, to be honest. I’m supposed to be running but I saw you here and figured this would be fun before I have to get on the treadmill.”

Junhui laughed and slid the weight on the other side off so he could start lighter and work up. “I still have to warm up and I wasn’t planning on breaking any PRs today so I think you’ll just have to run, Soon-ah.” No one on any of the sports teams was good at re-racking weights after a work out, and just moving everything back to their appropriate places was its own set of reps. “But don’t we get enough cardio and conditioning during practices?”

Soonyoung sighed, draping himself over the bar opposite Junhui’s. “You’d think so, but Coach wants me to get my 5k under 32 minutes by districts so I can peak under 30 by prefecturals or something. I hate cardio and I’m not a runner. It’s torture, Junhui!” Soonyoung pouted pitifully and Junhui gave him a consoling smile and pat on the shoulder before sliding onto the bench and under the bar.

“Torture is hearing you whine from this early in the morning on a weekend.”

“Wonwoo! You’re here too? Do _you_ need a spotter?” Soonyoung asked hopefully.

“I was going to say great minds think alike but then I remembered who you were,” Wonwoo deadpanned, coming over to tweak Soonyoung’s nose.

“Didn’t the managers just put resistance training on weekends for everyone?” Junhui muttered, finishing up an easy high-rep low-weight press to slide on 25s for his next set.

“The great mind speaks.”

“How come I got put on extra cardio then?” Soonyoung asked.

“Probably because you suck at it,” Wonwoo answered without any softening of the blow. “I’m supposed to be doing legs, so.”

“Yep, you’re pretty twiggy. Makes sense.” Soonyoung laughed and avoided the punch Wonwoo aimed at his gut. “Wonder what they make captain do then. He builds muscle watching TV, and it’s not like his cardio is bad, not that cardio is even important—Yes! Okay, I get it.” Wonwoo and Junhui had both looked at Soonyoung at that, sufficiently guilting him onto the treadmill.

A few others from the team trickled in, and when Junhui waved pleasantly at Minghao, he’d kind of half-smiled and turned away. Which was fine. It was fine. Everyone did their own thing, without bothering each other. Junhui cycled through regular bench press, dumbbell presses on an incline bench, and then overhead presses for his shoulders. He was clipping a rope fixture to the cable machines when Soonyoung finally finished his run.

A towel hung over Soonyoung’s head, and his torso was bent over. With one hand he supported his weight on his knee, and with the other he clutched a water bottle like it was the only thing keeping him alive. He did, in fact, look inches from death, from the sickly paleness of his skin to the half-closed eyes, heaving chest and unsteadiness on his feet.

Junhui abandoned his set of tricep pushdowns, grabbed his water bottle, and gently guided Soonyoung onto a bench so he could sit. Soonyoung’s thighs trembled even sitting down and Junhui awkwardly rubbed circles on his back while Soonyoung rested his forehead against the side of Junhui’s hipbone.

“I hate running,” Soonyoung said quietly, breath still coming in short bursts.

“Me too, Soonyoungie.”

“I’m not a runner. I’m a tennis player. If I can sprint to the ball and hit it over to the other side without it bouncing a second time, isn’t that enough?”

“Sure sounds good to me.” What didn’t sound so good was Soonyoung’s breathing. He sounded like he was hyperventilating, trying to get all of the words out and still inhale enough air.

“It’s not fair. Wonwoo gets to do hip thrusts. I could hip thrust to the next century if Coach wanted. I could hip thrust 315 pounds. Why do I have to run?”

“So unfair,” Junhui agreed empathetically.

The complaints stopped after that, and slowly Soonyoung seemed to return to normal, although when he stood again it was on shaky feet.

“You call me twiggy but I can hip thrust 3 plates too,” Wonwoo said, showing up to hand Soonyoung his full bottle, peeling Soonyoung’s out from his fingers so he could waterfall a good three swallows down.

Soonyoung wagged a finger, wiping at the drops that had dribbled down his chin with his other hand. “It’s not the net force, you have to think about rate too,” he said, cheekily. “If you can only get one full force thrust in before needing a rest, that’s not going to make them feel so good, is it?”

It took Junhui a full half-minute to understand the gist of things.

“I let you drink my water, you disgusting jerk,” Wonwoo said, aghast.

“That’s your own fault.” Soonyoung grinned. “So, Wonwoo-goon, what’s your RPM?” He moved his hands to clutch at the air, like he was grabbing an imaginary set of hips, and mimed thrusting forward crudely.

“I don’t know Soonyoung,” Wonwoo said sarcastically, but he was looking at Junhui. “I guess I’ll time myself next time and let you know.”

Junhui willed his face not to turn more red than it already was from physical exertion, but then Wonwoo had to add a, “So Junnie, you do an extra set of dumbbell presses for your left arm only?” and the battle was lost before it begun.

Luckily, Minghao chose that moment to tap Junhui on the shoulder, and he left Wonwoo to explain himself out of the inside joke to a perplexed Soonyoung.

“Coach was saying we should work on formations,” Minghao said.

Junhui nodded, and didn’t say that he had been wanting to say the same thing, except Minghao had been ignoring him before and after practices and thus not given Junhui the chance to bring it up. “Yeah, we can’t just be chasing diagonals forever.”

“Okay, do you have time now? I don’t think the girls have the courts until four so we can get some practice in.”

He looked at the clock, which was running down close to one in the afternoon. “Lunch?”

“After that, then.”

Wonwoo interrupted, “Junnie has—”

“It’s fine.” Junhui had a fuckton of readings, a quiz in East Asian history to study for, and a topic outline due for his final research paper in international policy. He was also supposed to call his mom at two or three since he’d missed last weekend, but it wasn’t a big deal. He could squeeze everything in afterward, or something. “Let’s go.”

His arm automatically reached up to hang around Minghao’s shoulders and then dropped, remembering that it wasn’t Dongjin, or even Mingming that was his doubles partner now.

“Let’s go,” he said again, lighter this time, leaving behind Wonwoo, Wonwoo’s frown, and the two water bottles in Wonwoo’s hands.

 

 

 

 

 

The call with his mother was rescheduled to Sunday evening, and caught Junhui coming back from the caf, so he stayed outside in the floor common room to take it, letting Wonwoo go ahead back to their room without him.

His mother was happy to hear from him, although she sounded more tired than two weeks ago when he last spoke to her.

“Your father’s been pulling more overtime recently so I’ve been taking care of a few extra things. Don’t worry about it, it’s fine,” she said when asked. And then, sensing a need for distraction, she put Junhui’s little brother on the phone, and they’d chatted for ages about Yangyang’s friends, who seemed to change faster than players alternated court sides in a tennis match.

“Mom’s letting me start tennis classes! I’m going to be just as good as you,” Yangyang boasted.

Junhui laughed. In another lifetime, they wouldn’t be separated in age by ten years, and maybe they’d have been able to be doubles partners. Like the Williams sisters, except that they weren’t good enough to go pro. Might have helped Junhui hold down a stable playing partner for longer than a year at a time, but who needed wishful thinking.

He reminded his mother to spend less time worrying about him and more on taking care of herself and then shuffled back down the hallway to his room. After a perfunctory knock, Junhui slid open the keypad, punched in the code, and walked straight in. But as soon as the door had opened, Junhui realized he should have waited.

Wonwoo was pacing up and down the length of the floor from window to door, one hand in his hair, the other holding his phone to his ear, a stormy expression on his face. He clocked Junhui’s entrance and shuttered his eyes closed. The sigh that escaped his lips seemed only to fuel the yelling on the other side of the line, words indistinguishable to Junhui from the distance, but the manner in which they were spoken unmistakably furious.

“Okay, I’m busy now, I have to go. Can’t you wait until after districts?” A pause, Wonwoo sat down on his bed, knees spread, back slouched, elbows pressed against the tops of his thighs. He lifted a hand to knead at the top of his nose. “Okay, fine, we’ll talk about it, but later.”

The call ended and Wonwoo tossed his phone on the bed behind him. He sighed again and rolled his head from side to side, stretching out his neck before leaning back on his hands to level Junhui with a look.

“Is everything…okay…?” Junhui asked.

“I’m sure you can guess.”

“Don’t be an ass, Wonwoo.”

“Can’t I brood in peace? Just leave it alone, let me be handsomely miserable by myself.”

“I told you, don’t be an ass. I’m trying to be a good person here.”

Wonwoo looked at him, a sharpness in his eyes. He held his hands with his palms pressed together but fingers spread apart stiffly. “Why is your definition of being a good person to me so different from how you try to be a good person to everyone else, huh?”

Junhui frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“You let Soonyoung mope all he wants and Minghao walk all over you like you’re just the goddamn carpeting. ‘It’s fine, it’s fine’. But with me it’s all pushback.”

That was because—“No. You’re distracting me. Talk.” It was probably true. And Junhui probably knew the reasoning. But if he followed that train of thought or expressed it to Wonwoo, he’d be letting Wonwoo dictate the conversation, which he was good at masterminding, both on and off the court.

“See? That’s exactly what I’m saying. You’d never force Dongmin or Dongjin or Xuanyi or whoever else. What if I don’t want to talk about it?”

“Xuanyi’s older than us.”

“I still don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine!” Junhui threw his hands up in the air. “What do you want? Me to be nicer to you? Will that make you happy?”

Wonwoo caught one of Junhui’s hands coming back down in his own, and pulled him forward until Junhui had a knee on Wonwoo’s bed and a very startled expression. “Hm…not really.”

He yanked Junhui forward again, guiding his arm so that it was seeking support on Wonwoo’s back and he was practically sprawled between Wonwoo’s knees. Junhui’s lips parted and he let out a soft gasp.

“I do want to fuck you though,” Wonwoo murmured, looking up into Junhui’s face with a quiet kind of expression, one that didn’t really match what he was saying.

“Wonwoo…”

“I want to see how hard I can fuck you, and then how much harder still when you’re begging for more. I want to know how fast to fuck you before you’re almost over the edge, and how slow it takes to make you come undone.”

Junhui’s lower lip quivered. As if he hadn’t been thinking about it ever since the conversation in the gym, as if he hadn’t been imagining Wonwoo thrusting into him on his back, on his knees, on a desk, up against a wall.

“I want to fuck you so good you don’t need the help of your left hand, just my cock inside you, driving you crazy, making you feel so good. Do you want that, Junnie? Do you want me to fuck you so you’re feeling it during all of practice, and can’t so much as lunge for a forehand without remembering what it’s like to have me in your ass?”

Wonwoo was deflecting. Wonwoo was a master deflector. Junhui knew he was deflecting, but he was also half hard and whimpering and wanted nothing more than to answer yes.

He placed a hand on each of Wonwoo’s shoulders and leant down to close the space between their lips.

Wonwoo kissed him hungrily, like Junhui was something specially prepared on a dinner plate, and when he fucked him, it was like Junhui was being consumed whole.

 

 

 

 

 

The first head-to-head at the district tournament also served as the first official match-ups for almost all of the schools. Hence, rather than following regular three wins to a knock-out rules, all the matches were to be played, regardless of total wins in a series.

Doubles 2 started earliest in the morning, before many spectators had arrived. Many of their teammates were yawning on the bench or napping when Junhui and Minghao finished their first competitive match as a doubles pair, winning 6-3 6-3 against a team Junhui remembered from the first round of the tournament last year.

Their post-game debrief involved a lot of thoughtful looks from Coach, who offered suggestions for improvement, but seemed otherwise satisfied with their overall performance.

On the other hand, although Soonyoung and Seokmin won their match 6-1 6-2, they got an earful over unforced errors, the other team’s number of return aces, and Soonyoung’s dwindling stamina by the end of the second set. It wasn’t markedly noticeable, not when Soonyoung was still getting balls over the net, but his flexibility and energy level definitely fell, leading to longer rallies and fewer surprise volleys than he was capable of.

By the time the singles matches were slated to begin, the stands had filled up considerably, with scouts and media taking up positions near the fences. Junhui spotted Jeonghan, doing his job at last, although he’d foisted off the camera to some younger student whose name Junhui didn’t know while Jeonghan himself stood with his arms crossed and glared at Seungcheol.

“You’re getting sloppy, third singles,” Jihoon teased, after Wonwoo came back winning back to back bagels over a guy who looked twice as thick and half as fast.

Wonwoo squinted at the giant clock face in the corner of the court, beside the scoreline reading 6-0 6-0, and towelled off his sweat at the same time. “Did that really take 45 minutes?”

Junhui looked up and read off the time. “So, more like 42? Somewhere between 40 and 45 anyway. Can you not see it from over here?”

There was a mutter about Jihoon being right and then Wonwoo plopped down on the bench beside him, close enough that their thighs were touching and it wouldn’t be that out of place for Junhui to put a hand on Wonwoo’s knobbly knee. For a moment there was nothing more that Junhui wanted than to lean over and tuck his head under Wonwoo’s chin and to be held, but the image was so jarring against their separate bedroom versus court personas that Junhui had to shift sideways until there was no longer any body contact.

Wonwoo looked at him askance but didn’t say anything.

They clapped at the appropriate times during Seungcheol’s match, relishing the service aces from the captain’s 170km/h serves, and tried to hide their snickers when he too was scolded for losing a set in the middle to bad calls and avoidable mistakes.

And then it was Jihoon’s turn, and the crowd was suddenly filled with murmurs and bystanders at the edge of their seats. This was their first exhibition of the season, the earliest taste of one of the best giving a free masterclass in tennis.

Jihoon himself was frowning at the clamour, but the cameras fed on that annoyance. Reporters drank in the expression on his face as a sign of his power or determination or something, always treating Jihoon like a monster instead of a person. It was something Junhui couldn’t help but feel bad about every time.

The match ended in 25 odd minutes, service aces, return aces, Jihoon reaching pinpoint corners, deadly angles, quick volleys, out of reach lobs, heavy smashes. The prodigy was the prodigy after all, and the crowd roared with the final call: “Game, set, and match to Pleiades’ Lee Jihoon. Six games to love, six games to love.”

“You could have been done faster,” Wonwoo pointed out at the end, when the crowd was on their feet, and Jihoon’s opponent, the captain on their team, was sitting with his head between his knees.

“Eh. You could have too,” Jihoon said breezily. “We still on for Overwatch after?”

 

 

 

 

 

For dinner they ordered jjajangmyeon, calling in from the place where the owner had a soft spot for Jihoon and his dimples. Though he was loathe to sound cute and play up that side of him on the phone, Jihoon still ended up saying, “Ahh, ahjumma, you’ll give us lots and lots of sauce right? And you remember that I really like the pickled radish from your restaurant!” Some sacrifices were worth it, especially if they resulted in extra food.

Wonwoo and Jihoon tore apart the plastic wrapping on their meals in front of their computers, sitting squished together at the tiny workspace desk on Wonwoo’s side of the room, slurping noodles and getting sauce everywhere without noticing much because they were too busy ‘taking point’ or whatever kinds of things you did in these video games, which Junhui never got the hang of. He’d have done better in something like competitive Cookie Run or any of a wide range of match-three games, attached to his phone as he was between classes, practice, and even in the bathroom, but the ones where you needed to use two hands or anything more than a click and shoot were a lost cause.

“Everyone starts off a beginner,” Wonwoo had said once when they were twelve. “Obviously I didn’t suck when I first started, but I definitely wasn’t as good as I am now either. Just try it, Junnie, and you’ll get better.”

“Nooooooo, trust me, I’m bad,” Junhui had replied shyly.

Then Wonwoo had turned and shrugged in a light suit yourself kind of manner, saying, “Fine, whatever. You’re so boring.” Junhui had remained small and deflated for days after that one, swinging his legs and staying mum while staring at the screen from behind Wonwoo as the computer game character ran around chopping at enormous mushrooms and boars with deceptively cute faces.

He never did get any better at video games, but that might have been because after that moment, Junhui never really tried. Presently that gave him the opportunity to steal radish slices from Wonwoo and Jihoon’s stash while they weren’t looking. Junhui finished eating quickly by himself, setting the empty bowl outside for collection before returning to the room. Neither had seemed to notice him leaving either, immersed as they were, which was kind of neat, like he had gained the superpower of invisibility by accident. Moreover, the quiet but rhythmic clicking and tapping from that part of the room produced just enough white noise in the background to allow Junhui to get some reading done, and after the first few instances, Junhui even learned to block out the intermittent wordless yelling thrown into the mix.

Everyone had their own rituals between tournament blocks. Of course, it depended on whether it was a single weekend kind of tournament, or the kind that spanned across several weeks because so many schools were competing and there wasn’t enough court space to accommodate all of the games in one go.

On the way back to campus Junhui had asked Minghao what his plans were for the rest of the day, and Minghao had very seriously replied, “Go for a quick cool down run. Keep it short though, so like maybe six or seven k?”  
Junhui couldn’t imagine lifting his legs to go up the stairs after finishing a tennis match, but Minghao wasn’t known as an endurance fiend for no reason. If Xu Minghao thought seven kilometres was a short distance, well, Junhui didn’t want to think about what kind of distance it would take to get Minghao to consider something a long run.

Junhui had been watching Wonwoo’s post match habits for years now, and peripherally that meant he also saw Jihoon sometimes. It was rare that either of them were really challenged before they got to nationals, but their matches still seemed to have a stimulating effect that drove up a certain competitive spirit in each of them. The way Wonwoo put it, “I’ve never beaten Lee Jihoon in a tennis match. But I’ve beaten him loads of times in video games.” And after a few wins (and some losses), Wonwoo's nose scrunching up as he smiled and raised his arms in a victory celebration, the manic energy would slowly dissipate until he’d return to an unshakeable calm, ready again for the next match.

As kids, the moments after a game were Junhui’s favourite. Summer tennis camps with long mornings of drills and afternoon practice matches culminated in easy walks to their houses together, Wonwoo's skinny arm slung over his shoulder, dragging Junhui into his personal bubble, face tilted up toward the sun's slanted evening rays. His skin was tanner in the summer, always warm wherever it was pressed against Junhui’s own, and he would be unafraid, then, of horsing around while recounting each of his best shots, as if Junhui hadn’t been glued to the fence watching every ball as long as he didn’t have a game of his own. During those walks, Junhui could pitch in just about anything and Wonwoo would laugh instead of pushing at him or rolling his eyes. His lips would curl into their own self-satisfied smile at that, confident later when his aunt asked if he’d “walked with his friend” that he could answer yes.

It seemed, in retrospect, that those matches made Wonwoo happy. Winning tennis made Wonwoo happy, and not just pleased in the way all competitive people enjoy success, but a full smile with teeth exposed and brightness in his eyes kind of happy, a happiness that opened him up, lifted the world off his shoulders, and lowered his guard enough to let Junhui in a little bit. Junhui wasn't sure he’d ever seen that kind of happiness in Wonwoo all the years since they met again in university, despite having seen practice or classes with each other multiple times a week. At the very least, he couldn’t remember feeling the burst of joy in his own chest at the sight of Wonwoo’s megawatt smile that he experienced after wins as a child.

Jihoon left just before eleven, despite Wonwoo egging him for another game.

“Come on, it’s not like you’ve got anyone waiting for you to get home, have you?”

Jihoon simply glared. “Are you trying to get between me and the intimate relationship I have with my bed?”

Wonwoo eventually pushed his chair back and washed up, the backs of his fingers ghosting along Junhui’s shoulder as he came and went, although with the way his eyes didn’t waver, the touch seemed to Junhui without any intention.

“You gonna come here?” Wonwoo asked, sitting with one knee up and his elbow on the desk beside his bed. He was leaning his head on his fist, gaze rather noncommittal.

Junhui slid off his bed and waddled over, taking a seat on Wonwoo’s bed while leaving some space between them.

There wasn’t any beating around the bush with Wonwoo, who wrapped a hand around Junhui’s arm and tugged him sideways, turning himself so his back was to the desk and Junhui was mostly on top of his lap.

Junhui blinked at him, arms on either side of Wonwoo’s waist, shakily supporting his own weight.

The corners of Wonwoo’s mouth lifted and he leaned forward to press a quick peck to Junhui’s mouth.

“Don’t you think we should celebrate? For winning?”

And then, without waiting for Junhui’s answer, he pulled him into another kiss, a tame smooch at first before cupping Junhui’s jaw with his hand and slipping his tongue between Junhui’s lips.

When Junhui pulled back his heart was hammering in his chest, and he felt dizzy from the way his stomach was flipping inside him. “I’m kind of tired,” Junhui mumbled. It was just a kiss, people kissed each other meaninglessly all the time, Junhui’s parents had done it even tho their divorce was years in the making, actors on TV, people at bars and clubs. But that kiss tasted like winning, tasted like twelve-year-old Wonwoo throwing an arm over Junhui’s shoulder, a wide grin on his face, a way of celebrating on its own. He wanted it to go on forever, happier days, but there were still matches tomorrow.

“So sleep,” Wonwoo said easily, pressing a final kiss to Junhui’s forehead before sitting himself up.

“Here?”

“Yeah,” was the reply, Wonwoo’s tone sounding like he thought that was obvious. He shoved Junhui’s bum over and pulled up the folded blanket, draping it over Junhui without another word.

Junhui, once settled in, poked his head up. “You coming to bed too?”

“In just a bit.” Wonwoo was sitting at the foot of his bed, notebook in hand, pen scratching furiously across the page so fast it looked like his hand was flying from Junhui’s point of view.

After yawning and snuggling under the blanket, Junhui asked, “Are you going to read me something for bedtime?”

“Do you want me to?” Wonwoo’s scribbling didn’t let up.

“It’s just…I know you write a lot of stories and poems for class and stuff, but you never publish anything, not in the school journals, not even online. I guess I just wanna know what you’re writing about,” Junhui said quietly.

“You’ll find out eventually,” Wonwoo said, after he’d filled up what must have been another two full pages. “I promise.”

Junhui’d nearly fallen asleep already. “You say that now…but you won’t even remember me when you’re some famous author.”

Wonwoo scooted into bed beside Junhui, tangling their legs together. “You’ll see.”

 

 

 

 

 

Day two of the tournament dawned cool and cloudy, and Junhui found himself waking up with his entire body huddled under the blankets, tucked against Wonwoo’s chest, an arm around his belly and a leg swung over his own. Autumn was slowly but surely creeping into Seoul, and now it had decided to show its teeth.

He spent so much time trying to will himself to throw off the covers and brave the brisk morning air his scheduling was thrown off, and he was shaking Wonwoo awake fifteen minutes after he was supposed to, between trying to find a pair of clean socks and making sure his tennis bag was packed. Though everything that was supposed to be there was there, his roll of grip tape ran so low he’d barely finish a strip on a racket handle, and he couldn’t remember where he’d stored the back-up roll he bought a week ago.

“It’s cold,” Wonwoo whined when he finally flung himself out of bed. He’d curled up around Junhui’s back again, feeding off the body heat.

Junhui distractedly tossed him one of the tennis team windbreakers and turned to uproot the entire contents of his desk drawer, on the lookout for the grip tape.

Wonwoo’s voice increased in pitch, whining, “Junnieeee.”

He found the roll, still in its clear plastic box, and he tossed the entire thing in the side pocket of his bag before rushing to the closet, shoving clothing at Wonwoo to hurry him into getting dressed, and then sprinted down the hall to grab pastry buns from the kitchen that they could eat on the bus ride for breakfast.

By the time Junhui finally boarded, panting a little at having to lug all his rackets around campus, Wonwoo was already there, sitting next to Jihoon and laughing about something.

“I was scared you’d still be at the dorm and I’d have to run back to get you,” Junhui joked.

Wonwoo glanced at him and then immediately turned back to Jihoon, ignoring the proffered sausage bun in Junhui’s outstretched hand.

Junhui tried not to let anything show on his face and headed further back in the bus. “Seat taken?”

Minghao looked at him, a bit zombie-like, and then at the food in his hands. “You sharing that?”

“Sure,” Junhui said, and though he was working hard at his facial expression, his voice sounded tired, even to him. He sighed, tossed himself into the seat, sunk down and closed his eyes. “Have at it.”

 

 

 

 

 

More people showed up to this match than the day before. The noise of the crowd cut through Junhui’s headphones, a cheap plastic pair he kept only for matches. It was stupid, really, but he’d borrowed them from Mingming after forgetting his own on the day of their first collegiate level tennis match, and after they won, he’d asked to keep them as a good luck charm. He’d lost games before with these, but they served a sentimental purpose now, more than a functional one.

It could have been the buzz that was distracting him.

“Hey, get it together. It’s our service game, you’re not going to let them break, are you?” Minghao said, voice low, hand on Junhui’s shoulder to stop him before he went back to the baseline.

Their opponents were not a bad pair, but nor were they particularly strong. Junhui and Minghao were up 4-3 in the set, but Junhui had double faulted on one of his serves and shot a backhand straight into the net, leaving them at 40-30 when they should have finished off the game on the last point for 5-3.

“Sorry,” Junhui said, shoulders stooping as his nerves rose like the bile in his stomach.

His next serve made it over the net, but it was slow and tightly contained, therefore returned easily. They finally made the last volley and smash and Minghao nodded approvingly. They seemed to get their rhythm back momentarily, winning the set 6-4, and went into the second flying. Minghao was hitting rising shots the team they were playing against couldn’t control the spins on, and their movement left gaps Junhui could exploit, lobbing behind them or going for sharp angles in places they weren’t covering well.

And then, on Minghao’s serve, Junhui looked back into the stands behind them, sprinkled with a few observers, though the benches were far from full, and saw something that made him pause.

“You good?”

Junhui frowned. “Yeah… Yeah, go ahead and serve.” He’d turned around and they finished that game, but afterward, following their court change, Junhui had a full view of the stands in the north end again, and it was no longer just something he saw in passing.

Sitting there was Dongjin. Shin Dongjin.

It didn’t appear like Dongjin noticed that Junhui had seen him; his eyes were drawn further down, perhaps to where the other player was bouncing a ball, readying for his serve. Said serve almost caught Junhui in the face, but he raised his racket at the last moment to block the shot, accidentally creating a nice drop volley in the process. Yet all he could think about was Dongjin. Why was Dongjin there? Why had Dongjin left? Junhui had been too scared to let himself think about Dongjin, but now that he was seeing him again, his brain found itself unable to relinquish the subject matter.

It wasn’t just a possibility at this point; the people in the stands were definitely distracting Junhui.

He played a game without really being all there, hitting perfunctory shots, and levying Minghao with a series of apologies.

After a ball hit just outside of the doubles’ court line, Junhui sighed and squatted down, leaning on his racket for a moment before rising and turning to Minghao. “My bad.”

“Okay, shut up, stop apologizing, and just focus. We all have off games sometimes, but we have to win this. Forget what’s happened so far, let’s just pull together going forward, alright?”

Somehow, they managed to win the second set in a narrow 7-5 victory, and as soon as the last ball made its second bounce on the opposite side of the net, Junhui ran to Minghao to pull him into a tight hug, lifting him off his feet in the process.

“Alright, alright, put me down!”

Junhui spun around in a circle before lowering him. “We did it, we won!” He cried, arms still wrapped around Minghao’s shoulders before they were roughly pulled off, and Minghao was pushing him away.

“Yes, we did. Now get off me. You’re being so clingy.”

“Aren’t you happy, little Haohao?”

Minghao scowled at the nickname and threw his racket over his shoulder, balancing it there with thumb and forefinger. “Honestly, everything about that was annoying, and I’m just glad that it’s over. It was a shit game.”

That wasn’t untrue. Junhui bit his lip, trailing behind Minghao apologetically, but when he opened his mouth to say something, Minghao shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“Junhui!” Coach called, waving them over for a debrief or something.

Junhui forced a quick smile and slung his bag onto his back. “I’ll be right back, just going to go find some water.”

He shuffled off the courts quickly, heading off in the direction of the trees, thinking there’d be fewer people there. The two bottles of water in his bag were burning a hole there, but not enough to overpower the hole in Junhui’s chest. It was a shit game, and mostly it was because Junhui had played shittily, letting stupid things get in the way of his game. He was better than that. He’d played for long enough to be able to have a stronger mentality than what he showed today. He was supposed to be the mediator on the court, the level-headed one who thought strategy. And yet…

So lost was he in his thoughts that he didn’t notice he was running straight into someone until they collided, the other trying to avoid crashing into Junhui as he hurried in the other direction, but their shoulders knocked into each other all the same.

“Shit, sorry, I—doubles guy!”

Junhui looked up, trying to get a hold of his bearings, and recognized the guy from the garden courts before school started, one of the first people Minghao and Junhui played against together. The blue in his bangs had faded out or been cut, and left behind only an icy blond that was striking even on its own.

“I remember you,” Junhui said. “You used to have blue hair!”

The guy laughed. “Yeah, I did. I don’t think we introduced each other last time. I’m Shin Hoseok, Rush University.”

Junhui accepted the handshake. “Wen Junhui, Pleiades.”

“Don’t you guys have a match-up right now?”

“Just finished second doubles.”

“Oh! Did you win?”

Junhui tilted his head. “Uh…yeah.”

“Congrats! We’re not actually in this district but I thought I’d come scout out the competition before prefecturals. I think we’ll probably face you guys there.” Hoseok laughed and Junhui was immediately very grateful that he hadn’t watched their game, somehow feeling like he’d be embarrassed in front of this man he barely knew.

“Do you…?”

“I’m usually singles two! The other guy you met, Kihyun, he’s usually third singles, and there was a rumour after your last game that your third singles guy is brutal.”

“He’s—,” Junhui started to say something and stopped himself. Jeon Wonwoo was another knot of weird feelings for him right now too.

“We’ll still beat you,” Hoseok said, but it was said good-naturedly.

Junhui smiled. “I’ll look forward to it. You said Rush? I have a friend who goes there, coincidentally.”

“Really? I’ve never seen you around though, I don’t think.”

“She’s not on the tennis team,” Junhui said quickly. “Business major.”

Hoseok shook his head, smiling. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. I’m double majoring in world music and music performance, and it’s a completely different part of campus. The tennis courts too. But one of yours, Soonyoung, I think? He shows up at some of our parties. Friends with one of our doubles players. Guess we’re more connected than I thought.”

“Music major?” Junhui asked. He wasn’t sure he’d ever met anyone in the music department before.

“Yeah! I specialize in East Asian stringed instruments…mostly zithers and stuff, and then regular piano and guitar. Lots of hand calluses between all my interests.” He held up his palms to show. “Are you headed back to the court by the way? I’m already late and missed yours, I don’t wanna miss any more matches.”

“Um, I was gonna…They’re that way,” Junhui said, pointing in the direction he came from.

“Okay,” Hoseok nodded. “I’ll see you around!” And then he ran off again, while Junhui stood, heaving out a long exhale.

Junhui was going to have to head back too, eventually, and face the music, so to speak, from both Coach and Minghao. And possibly Wonwoo’s continued cold shoulder.

He started the trek back, walking slowly, noticing trees he hadn’t seen at all on his half-dazed frustration run out here into the middle of the park grounds where they were hosting the district tournament. A total of a half-dozen courts lined the paved main street coming in, but in the opposite direction, the one where Hoseok came from, the park was trees, hills, and dirt paths, easy to get lost in, or to wander and explore.

When he arrived at their allocated court again, Soonyoung and Seokmin had nearly finished their first set.

“Junhui! Where were you?”

He’d expected some yelling, but he hadn’t expected it to come from Seungcheol.

“Why were you gone for so long…You’ll never guess who was here! Dongjinnie came by.”

“Dongjin?” Junhui faked a tone of surprise, relieved that it wasn’t the kind of yelling that he was expecting, but distinctly uncomfortable nonetheless.

“Yeah, I don’t know if he was in the area or what but he said hi and then left, said he was busy. I’m sure he would have wanted to see you!”

Junhui wasn’t so sure. Dongjin had sat in the stands for an hour to watch the match and then when it was over, said hi to everyone except him? That seemed purposeful to say the least. Like he was confirming something. Like he was confirming that he didn’t want to play doubles with Junhui. And who would, given his shitty game, right?

 

 

 

 

 

“Junhui.”

God, he hated the sound of his name when Wonwoo said it. There was only a tiny difference between having the aspirated ‘h’ or not, but it had been so long since Junhui had heard anything other than the nickname that its presence was glaring, both angry and obvious, in a way that frightened Junhui.

“Are you going to eat?”

Junhui paused the game on his phone and set it down in front of him on the bed. He was lying on his side, facing the wall, and he didn’t turn around to the sound of Wonwoo’s voice, which sounded rough and cold, and boded poorly for the kind of expression Junhui might turn around to see on Wonwoo’s face.

So much had happened that morning in Junhui’s mind, thoughts he kept going over again and again, but he’d finally taped the door shut over them, silencing instead of coping, avoiding instead of confronting. “You can go ahead.”

He didn’t want to hear Wonwoo act like things were fine, if that was even what Wonwoo wanted to do. Things weren’t fine, and for some reason Wonwoo’s poor pretence made things less fine. He just wanted to let his brain work hard on making it back into its happy stage, where it convinced itself that Junhui had no problems or anything to be upset about, nothing to complain to anyone, no words but positive ones, and a belief that all the world was filled with excellent potential. And if to get there he needed to offer apologies or anything else of himself, he didn’t mind, he was willing to give it. Mediation was about compromise, and that was true with self-negotiations as well.

There was silence in their room for a few moments, which Junhui took to mean that Wonwoo was going to leave it well alone, probably what he wanted as well, and maybe in a day or two they could return to the way things were, sans discussion, sans feelings. But then, Wonwoo spoke again, calling out his name quietly. “Junnie?”

“Yeah?” He noticed then how odd his voice sounded, tight and small like it had been packaged inside a tennis ball and bubbling out of him from the outside.

“Are you…okay?”

Junhui prepared himself to retort something acerbically, a question along the lines of ‘why wouldn’t I be’, but when he turned around the words turned into a bitter, “I’m fine,” spoken aloud. He blinked, and suddenly there was wetness on his cheeks and at the corners of his eyes and he repeated the words again. “I’m fine,” he said, leaking tears all the while.

Wonwoo sunk down onto Junhui’s bed and wordlessly pulled him into a sitting position. Junhui couldn’t look at him, and Wonwoo didn’t seem inclined to try asking anything. He held Junhui’s hands loosely in one of his own, and then when Junhui screwed up his eyes and blinked away anything else threatening to escape, he’d handed him a tissue, eyes open wide and looking at Junhui with an earnest shine.

After Junhui blotted the tears away, Wonwoo took the tissue away from him, still not saying anything. Junhui felt like something had lifted off of his chest, the catharsis of a good cry settling comfortably around his shoulders, the way Wonwoo’s arm would sometimes sit naturally there. He sighed and lowered his head, letting his forehead rest against Wonwoo’s collarbone.

That seemed to be a sign, prompting Wonwoo to shift closer and put an arm around Junhui, giving his back slow and gentle pats. Some time later, Wonwoo’s hand slowed, and Junhui turned his head to the side to press a gentle kiss to his throat.

“Junnie…”

It wasn’t something he was meaning to do, but hearing his name, said _properly_ this time, spurred Junhui on, and Wonwoo lifted his chin up, giving him easier access. From there the clothes came off, and really, there was something to be said about getting finger fucked to oblivion as a coping mechanism.

“Feeling better?” Wonwoo asked, amused when Junhui fell backward and pulled Wonwoo on top of him, their bodies pressed together, and the weight of Wonwoo feeling like a safety blanket.

Junhui exhaled softly. He wanted to snuggle in, as if Wonwoo really were a blanket, but Minghao’s comments from earlier in the day were still at the forefront of his mind. _Clingy_ and _annoying_ weren’t things he wanted to be to anyone, but they really really weren’t anything he wanted Wonwoo to associate him with, so Junhui let his hands fall and didn’t pull Wonwoo in any closer, lest that be cause again for him to be pushed away.

“This morning,” Wonwoo started.

Junhui cut him off quickly with a shake of his head. It hadn’t really been this morning. It had been yesterday, the day before that, a week ago, a month ago. When Minghao hated Junhui’s nickname for him, when Seungcheol told him Dongjin had left, when Mingming went pro alone, and then some combination of all three doubles partners, or their ghosts, plaguing him. Mingming, Dongjin, Minghao. Mingming, Dongjin, Minghao.

And somewhere, in that list of names, Wonwoo fit in too.

Because it hadn’t been the first time he’d heard the word annoying used about him.

They were eleven, maybe twelve, and Wonwoo had been the first kid his age he’d met after arriving in a new country. He’d followed after him day in day out, until one moment when Wonwoo turned around and told Junhui he was being annoying and to get lost. Junhui hadn’t understood ‘annoying’ then but he understood the gist, and watched Wonwoo walk away. Moments later, some other boys had showed up and demanded Junhui pay for their milk and cream pastries, and for some reason Wonwoo came back and made them leave.

Was that the first time Junhui’s heart fluttered?

It was like that with Wonwoo, back then and now, both poison and antidote, sometimes in the same sitting.

But as Junhui had told Xuanyi, he didn’t know if Wonwoo remembered their shared childhood. And he didn’t think it mattered. Junhui was going to drink him in, either way.

“It’s okay…better even, without, you know, saying it. I like us like this.” Less chance to be annoying or clingy. “Not…too…you know. Keep everything not too serious.”

Although to be honest, the catch feelings ship sailed long long ago. Junhui was a baseball mitt and Wonwoo a windup pitcher, and with the number of balls thrown his way, it was inevitable that he would catch _something_ , sooner or later. He felt it, in every cell of his body, the desire to reach out and hold onto Wonwoo, to hold him tight and never let go.

“Not too serious?” Wonwoo repeated. “You mean like ‘casual’?”

Junhui didn’t think he’d ever heard that tone of voice from him before. He wondered if Wonwoo could hear his heart hammering against his ribcage.

Then, Wonwoo made a funny little snort. “Why are you still here then? Get off my bed.”

“This is my bed,” Junhui reminded him.

He didn’t mention that Wonwoo was the one on top of him, and thankfully, Wonwoo didn’t seem much inclined to move.

 

 

 

 

 

“That is one heck of a hickey,” Soonyoung whispered, peering up from a textbook where he was undoubtedly learning about whale sperm or something equally niche.

“It’s not a hickey,” Wonwoo lied easily, eyes blank and unblinking on Junhui.

Soonyoung laughed, and then covered his mouth, darting a guilty look in the direction of the librarian. “I’m sure. Whoever gave you it must be crazy in bed.”

“It’s not a hickey,” Wonwoo repeated, watching Junhui squirm in his seat. “Got whacked in the neck with a tennis racket. It happens.”

“You don’t have to tell me who it was. Just acknowledge that is one beautiful set of bruises, Jeon.”

“Junhui, tell him about the tennis racket.”

“Mmm.” Junhui barely looked up, distracted by a new message on his phone, from a name that didn’t exactly crop up often.

‘ _Will be in Seoul for a conference for a weekend in the next month. Do you have time?_ ’

“Don’t make Junhui corroborate your lies, Wonwoo, he doesn’t deserve that.”

‘ _That’s the middle of tennis season. I can’t confirm right now_.’ Junhui typed back to his father, typing and deleting a few times before finally pressing send on a polite enough sounding text. Wonwoo was giving him a dark, emotionless kind of look. If he hadn’t been angry about the hickey, he was now, over Junhui not helping him out.

“No, there really was a tennis racket incident,” Junhui said. It hadn’t been to Wonwoo’s neck, but it wasn’t a complete lie. Better than admitting that the deed was done by his own mouth, anyway. His phone buzzed in his pocket again.

‘ _It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other_.’

It took Junhui some time to remember where his dad even was, or the last time he had talked to him. The moving around so often was what really brought about the divorce. His parents might have stayed together if it was once in a while, or even between large cities, but Junhui’s father ended up stationed at too many obscure places. Like where he was stationed now, at the Chinese embassy in Dominica, a country which Junhui had asked if his father meant the Dominican Republic, and been informed, no, Dominica, the island south of Guadeloupe and north of Martinique. Junhui had no idea what kind of diplomatic work China needed done there.

At the same time, Junhui didn’t really get the difference between being married to a man who moved around a lot and a man who lived in the same place, but was rarely home, like his step-dad. Well, he’d probably picked up the habit of saying everything was fine from his mother.

‘ _Yeah_ ,’ Junhui typed out in agreement. ‘ _It’s not a no_.’

“Can you not do that?” Soonyoung whined.

When no sign appeared that his father was responding any time soon, Junhui slid his phone back into his pocket and smiled. “Do what?”

“The teaming up together thing. It’s weird and messes with my doubles senses. It’s like Junhui gets two partners every year instead of one and my nose doesn’t like it.”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes and smiled at Junhui something real and brightly lit that sparked a flurry of wings in Junhui’s tummy, like moths being drawn to a flame. “Your nose?”

“Shut up. If you were going to come to the library just to show off your not-hickey and be mean to me, why did you come at all?”

“Yeah Junnie, why are we in the library? It’s not to show off my not-hickey because i don’t have one.”

Junhui furrowed his eyebrows. “Why are we in the library? Have you even started studying for the HR midterm?”

The HR in this case didn’t stand for human resources. It stood for human rights, and that name was a still shortened version of international law and politics of human rights, the only class that they shared together this semester.

“Shit, is that this week?” Wonwoo’s eyes rounded and he dug into his backpack for his books. “Do you have notes for last week? I don’t think I paid attention at all that lecture…” Which was untrue, because even as he said those words, Wonwoo was pulling out what he jotted down that class, pages of it, and Wonwoo produced better, albeit messier, notes when distracted than Junhui did on a focused day.

But when Soonyoung teased, “Wow, did Jeon Wonwoo forget about a test?” the scary thing was that he was right.

Wonwoo said, “Go fuck yourself,” but he was panicking, scrambling, and started cramming.

Junhui couldn’t for the life of him figure it out, Wonwoo, forgetting something related to class? It seemed too impossible to even fathom, and yet, the evidence was right in front of him.

 

 

 

 

 

The tension in tennis practices seeped in slowly, at first barely noticeable, now thick and suffocating.

Individual practice exercises took the same toll as usual, aching calves and abs after repetitive lateral movement training, living on or around the agility ladders. They combined with cardio, sprints, bouts of skipping rope, a few days a week doing resistance training. There were workshops for serves, workshops for volleys, workshops for forehands and workshops for backhands. Coach split them up into different groups every time, running drills for reaction time, accuracy, endurance, consistency. Training was tiring, but par the course.

On the other hand, doubles specific training strained Junhui’s muscles beyond the need for movement. Minghao never spoke a word to him beyond the bare minimum, and Junhui, terrified, of making anyone worry or something equally furtive, smiled and accepted the terse vocalization, trying to make up for it by being twice as chipper and talkative, something that only earned more eye-rolling from Minghao and half-muttered grievances Junhui made himself forget or simply not hear.

“When we talk court coverage, we talk a lot about where we want to be. Sometimes – most of the time we’re not there. We have to move to hit a shot, or move out of the way for our partner, and then we’re not in formation. Obviously, we re-group, but it’s important to be flexible. And to be flexible, we have to be always aware of each other. Constantly.”

That’s how Junhui found himself tied around the waist at one end of a rope, Minghao at the other, and the two expected to play a match like that, tied together.

It went disastrously.

The first problem cropped up in no time. Used to spreading out across the court and covering for open areas, Junhui and Minghao would run in opposite directions and then find themselves suddenly tugged back or cut off because they’d reached the maximum length of their rope and then scowl at each other for not cooperating, each thinking the other was in the wrong. Once they worked out how to let the returning player hit the ball before moving, they ran into another issue, quite literally. Because the rope was tied off, every time they swung around each other, they were shortening the amount of reach they had, and soon they were spinning around each other, getting their legs or arms tangled, running circles around each other and trying to turn in the opposite direction to separate once more.

If it didn’t require stringing together as many words to Junhui as it did, he suspected Minghao would have been shouting off his head by now, explaining all the ways in which Junhui was erring. That might have been better than their current predicament.

“Well, it’s not an easy drill, and it’s Minghao’s first time doing it. It’ll get better,” Manager Kim said. “It _will_ get better.” The second time a warning.

Sure, even for players who had been playing with each other for a considerable amount of time they might cross lines or miss balls with reduced range of motion, but the other doubles teams weren’t tripping each other or crashing into things because they had one advantage: communication. At the very least, they yelled when someone was going in the wrong direction, or if someone else needed slack in the rope to do their important immediate task. Junhui and Minghao said nothing to each other, and saying nothing was almost the same as doing nothing in terms of how well they performed. Honestly, Junhui would have preferred some truly harsh yelling to this.

Junhui mustered up a bright, “Let’s work hard~”. Minghao nodded, then turned to head to the change rooms, and Junhui’s smile crumbled. The one word or wordless answers drained him in a way the energy for faux happiness didn’t. A muscle, no matter how strong, eventually failed when eroded to suboptimal length.

“Hey, if you’re finished picking up balls, gather round!” Seungcheol’s voice rang out over everyone’s heads, and a semicircle formed quickly around him near the main gates outside the courts.

The first years scattered and picked up the pace, Junhui joining them to collect balls around the farthest court before joining in the others standing around waiting for further instruction from their captain, hanging back behind a haggle of second years ribbing each other around. An arm was slung around Junhui’s neck, and he didn’t need to turn to recognize Wonwoo’s side profile, the weight of his arm, or the scent of his deodorant, mixed now with sweat. Junhui dropped his shoulders and shifted his weight back on one hip, making himself easier to hang off of because no matter what Wonwoo told himself, Junhui was a smidgen taller.

“Is that everyone? Okay, Jeonghan will pass around the slips now. Our next training camp is tentatively set for the weekend before the first and second halves of the prefectural tournament. We have the option of going back to the mountain pension, or a beach house in the south that costs more money. We’ll go with the preference of the majority so you can choose one or the other or make another suggestion on the ballot and drop off votes in the collection box at the front of the change rooms or in the tennis office. I think that’s…oh! And we have a social planned for after next weekend’s games with the girls’ team to celebrate both our teams doing well at districts, and hopefully winning our first round match-ups at the prefectural tournament.” He looked around at his feet and smiled. “That’s really it, I promise this time. Dismissed!”

Part of the crowd dispersed, and others left to shower one by one after picking up their paper slips.

“Junnie, grab two?”

“Lazy ass,” Junhui said, counting out two sheets between his fingers before passing the stack along to the next person down on Wonwoo’s other side.

“Yep,” Wonwoo acknowledged cheerfully, and then steered them around so that they were facing in the direction of the locker room, Junhui falling into step beside him. “Hey, is that Mingyu?”

Junhui tore his eyes away from Wonwoo’s neck, where the bruising from a weekend ago still faintly darkened the delicate skin there, and looked up to see Wonwoo’s crazy tall childhood friend animatedly waving his arms in front of Minghao’s face.

“Yeah…He’s your friend, you know.” Junhui took note of Wonwoo’s squinting.

“And he’s not yours? Think he’d be hurt if ‘Moon Joonhwi-hyung’ didn’t like him.”

Junhui swatted his hand uselessly. “That’s not what I meant! It’s just, if either of us would recognize him, shouldn’t it be you? Can you not see from here?” They weren’t really that far away.

“It’s a long way from the volleyball courts…the nicely temperature controlled…indoor…volleyball courts.” Fall had set in, but the weather remained unpredictable, switching between days where running in sweatpants and a windbreaker couldn’t keep you warm and days when the sweat pooling on the courts would be baked dry by the sun.

“Maybe he’s here to pass on a message from Seungkwan.” The way Junhui heard it, the volleyball team’s libero and Jeonghan-hyung were good friends, and it often seemed like Jeonghan-hyung had an in with all of the sports teams on campus. A thumb in every pie, as it were.

“Or maybe he’s just here to talk to your doubles partner.”

Junhui let out a slightly louder than normal exhale, not quite categorizable as a sigh. He quickly pursed his lips, trying to erase any trace of the sound he’d made, and stared at the back of Xu Minghao’s head.

“Is…” Wonwoo turned to look at him, eyes wide. He poked Junhui in the side. “Are you okay?”

“Oh yeah, fine. Just a little tired maybe,” Junhui said quickly.

“Let’s go then.” Wonwoo’s arm at the back of Junhui’s neck tugged him along forcefully until Junhui grabbed a hold of them and dug his heels into the ground.

“Go where?!”

“To say hi, obviously! I’ve known that kid since before he could walk, it’s duty for me to go embarrass him somehow. Also he should greet his upperclassmen and offer to do nice things. Like cook for us. Or clean. I’d be okay with either.”

He’d started to drag Junhui forward again, and was once again stopped by Junhui holding him back. “W-w-wait! They look like they’re talking about us…”

Wonwoo frowned and looked over to where Mingyu was definitely looking their way every so often, hands sometimes gesturing in their direction, while Minghao stood steadfastly with his back to them. Junhui clocked Wonwoo’s squinting and was certain now that Wonwoo needed glasses.

“Well, to be fair, we are also talking about them. But I guess it does kind of look like you’re right from here…”

“Wonwoo-yah, I think you need glasses.”

“What? I don’t need—”

“Hyung!” Mingyu’s shouting interrupted them, and the subsequent waving took away any further discussion on whether or not they should approach.

“Let’s go then,” Wonwoo said quickly, pulling at Junhui and ignoring or not understanding the pleading look in Junhui’s eyes. He did seem rather relieved at the abrupt end to their conversation about Wonwoo’s vision.

Wonwoo’s greeting was a none too gentle, “It’s been a while, you humongous giraffe.”

But Mingyu’s retort of, “the same to you, nerd,” was spat back so quickly Junhui was mildly impressed. It was followed up by a bright, “Hi, Moon Joonhwi-hyung!” in an eerily similar fashion to Wonwoo’s mimicry of the name mere moments ago. “How was practice?”

“Practice was fine,” Junhui said cautiously. Wryly Junhui noted that the only other person who seemed to be holding as much trepidation about the entire encounter as he did was Minghao, on a seemingly rare occasion that they could agree on anything. Doubles partnerships, striking when you least expected them. “Why are you here?” he asked slowly, careful of the tone of his voice.

Minghao seemed to think that was a good question as well, turning to look at Mingyu with daggers in his eyes.

“Do you not want me here?” Mingyu blinked his huge innocent eyes and bit his lower lip and Junhui felt like he’d kicked a puppy.

“No, I mean, of course I want you here!” Junhui tried, holding his hands up defensively while he back-pedalled. “It just, caught me unexpectedly?”

“Ah, I was coming to see everyone…Anyway, Minghao has something to say!”

“No I don’t,” Minghao said quickly, raising an arm threateningly toward Mingyu’s neck. “If Mingyu wants to say anything he can say it himself.”

Mingyu shuffled to the side behind Minghao, nudging him with his shoulder, and tilting his chin pointedly. Minghao, in return, gave him an unamused look and then lifted his hand in parting, headed off to the showers.

“Stubborn,” Mingyu muttered, rolling his eyes and sighing in a distinctly Mingyu-esque way, displaying all his emotions openly. Junhui couldn’t imagine being that expressive with his face without being awkward or self-conscious about it. “He’ll say it eventually, I’ll keep prodding at him until he does.”

“What, does Minghao have some big life secret to spill? Is he an alien?” Wonwoo narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “I always knew extra-terrestrials had already integrated into the population.”

“He’s not an alien, Wonwoo-hyung, and even if he were he wouldn’t let you fly around in his spaceship or something—that’s not a euphemism, stop laughing!”

“Still, it’d be kind of cool to fly up in space, wouldn’t it?” Wonwoo asked, a corner of his lips still lifted from his snickering.

Junhui rather thought it sounded scary, the great vastness of it, the loneliness you’d inevitably encounter even if you were flying with a crew. It felt better to be grounded to something, spinning around it slowly so that you could never float too far away and get lost forever.

“Whatever, nerd,” Mingyu said dismissively. “Listen, Moon Joonhwi-hyung, drop by our dorms some time, will you? I’ll cook you something and I think it’ll go better if…well, we’ll see I guess.”

“Hey what about me?” Wonwoo yelled at Mingyu’s retreating back. “Why don’t I get any food offers, you ungrateful brat?!”

 

 

 

 

 

‘ _Say yes_ ,’ read the text that came from Xuanyi the next day.

Junhui texted back, ‘ _???_ ’ but received no reply.

It wasn’t until late in the afternoon, just before tennis practice that he understood the meaning of the message. His international security course let out a few moments early, giving him time to run to the convenience store for a triangle kimbap that wouldn’t pose too much of a digestive issue ahead of running around for a few hours. He’d just turned the corner off the main road around the tennis courts when he heard his name shouted.

“Junhui-oppa!”

He coughed, then upped the rate of his chewing to swallow down his large mouthful of food before greeting Jieqiong with his hand over his mouth.

Jieqiong blinked a kind of begrudgingly tolerant blink at Junhui, a ghost of a smile on her lips but her eyes looking like she was trying to not find Junhui’s eating habits revolting.

“I’m playing at the cultural show next week and Xuanyi-unnie is coming…she said I should invite you, as her plus one?”

So that was what Xuanyi had meant about saying yes. She’d also probably expected Junhui to be ardently supportive, whether or not he might have had prior plans. Junhui could picture her face, making that exaggerated ‘does it look like I care?’ face if he had complained that he was busy. Not that he was.

“She was right! Of course I have to come see you, and Xuanyi-noona, if she’s on campus. I also think she’d kill me if I didn’t.”

“Not the actual act itself, surely. That’s beneath her, she’d at least hire someone.”

Junhui laughed a genuine, full-bodied laugh. “Good point. So, what are you performing? Singing? Dancing?”

Jieqiong shook her head. “I’m playing the pipa. Been learning it since I was a kid, actually.”

“Pipa?”

She scrunched up her face. “It’s kind of like if a _guzheng_ and an _erhu_ had a baby.”

“Oh, hang on.” Junhui scratched at his nose. “A _guzheng_ is a type of zither right?”

“Yeah, I think that’s the right word.”

“You think I could invite someone else too?”

Jieqiong scrutinized him from head to toe. “Bringing a girlfriend? Boyfriend? Partner?”

Junhui’s brain immediately conjured up an image of Wonwoo that he tried to shake out of his head just as quickly. Just because they sometimes, er, got each other off didn’t make them _boyfriends_ and even dreaming of the possibility was a dangerous game to play. Wonwoo had agreed when Junhui mentioned ‘casual’ anyway, so it was best to level with his own expectations.

“Nah, nothing like that. I just know someone who’s a music major and is interested in that kind of stuff. He might be interested in watching.”

“Hm,” Jieqiong said, still eyeing Junhui critically. “Bring him along then, I can probably scrounge up another ticket.”

“Great, see you then?”

She nodded and left Junhui with a question that almost overshadowed his apprehension at having to go through another practice facing Minghao’s curt, one-word replies – how on earth was he supposed to convey any of this to Hoseok, when they had only met each other in passing and weren’t even friends?

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe Junhui’s speed at writing the exam gave him a case of wishful thinking, but coming out of the human rights midterm, he felt, for the first time since high school really, confident and sure about all of his answers. There wasn’t a single question where he couldn’t remember the material showing up in his notes, nor any where he could remember studying the subject but not the actual material itself. He wanted to cheer, and walked without hiding the spring in his step for the whole rest of the day, buzzing even after collapsing in his room late in the evening.

When Wonwoo walked in, late from finishing up an enormous late night snack in the caf, Junhui was lying on his stomach in bed, legs swinging up in the air, scanning through the discussion in their class messaging group.

“How’d the midterm go?” Junhui asked, playing every bit the part of _that guy_.

“Okay I guess.” Wonwoo shrugged. “Considerably better than if I hadn’t studied at all for it, so thanks.”

Unlike normal people’s standard scaling of passing, failing, or doing well in a class, Wonwoo’s grading system operated in four tiers. ‘Okay’ usually meant somewhere between a 94-96%. ‘Fine’ was for grades in the range of 97-99%. He reserved ‘pretty good’ to perfect scores, of which there were many. Only once had Junhui seen a ‘not that great’, Wonwoo’s lowest mark of 92%. This was the kind of person whose transcript was littered with As and A+s, and nothing else.

Junhui understood the need to work hard and do well. He had his own five year plan to follow, and there was reason behind loading up on so many language courses despite his already hectic schedule. But Wonwoo’s perfect grades and strong co-curriculars went above and beyond simply doing well. They put him at the strongest in the field, in every field. People fought to be the best in everything, but Junhui wondered, he wondered how the Nadals and Federers and Djokovics felt when they got there, if the accomplishments didn’t come with a sense of emptiness, like you could be on top of the world but not really have anything at all. That, he supposed, was the difference between them. People like them competed with themselves, they could get to that point and still seek to improve, to be better, because the best didn’t equate to good enough.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Wonwoo visibly struggled not to reply something smart alecky like ‘you already did’, and nodded.

“Did you really forget that the test was today?”

Wonwoo deposited his bag on the ground with a blank expression, then raised a hand to scratch at the back of his neck before sitting down on his mattress with his knees spread apart, shoulders hunched forward. “Yeah. I have it written down but it wasn’t in my mind like test dates usually are. I had a bunch of stuff to think about around districts though, and…”

“And what?”

“I feel like it’s not that weird to forget something once in a while, right? I remember a lot of things, so naturally…”

Junhui nearly said something regrettable like ‘oh, so is that why you forgot me’, but tampered it down with a small, forced smile. Talking about something that really happened in the past was a little bit different from a sleepy joke about being forgotten in the future, somehow. “People tend to think of you as a memorization god around these parts,” he teased, sitting up to vaguely match Wonwoo’s sitting position. “Makes you wonder what would make you not remember something, since you remember so much.”

“Only the important stuff.” Wonwoo smiled. “If I forget something stupid it wouldn’t make a big enough splash, so it’s only really important stuff I’ll forget and get chewed out for later.”

“How about that phone call you had before districts then?” Junhui asked quickly. “Was that important? Or did you forget about it?”

It was like a gust of wind had blown through their closed window and snuffed out the light behind Wonwoo’s eyes. His entire face shuttered to a close, and the muscles around his mouth neutralizing into a stiff line. “Wish I could,” Wonwoo said flatly, voice barely audible.

“Wonwoo?” Junhui stood and took two steps toward him. Wonwoo’s mood itself wasn’t unfamiliar but the word sudden didn’t begin to describe how fast the change took place. He didn’t regret asking the question, however. If something was upsetting Wonwoo this much, Junhui definitely wanted to get to the bottom of it.

“Yes Junnie,” he said, voice quiet. “I know what it must have looked like but it wasn’t a big deal.” Wonwoo slipped on a small smile, not one of joy, but a genuine and assuring smile nonetheless. He reached out to Junhui, who was standing nearly toe to toe with him, and his slim fingers wrapped around Junhui’s right wrist, warm and steady. “It’s the past now.” Wonwoo lifted Junhui’s hand until his lips brushed against one of Junhui’s knuckles, and he’d held his hand there, holding it, pressure firm and constant.

“You were pretty upset. It was kind of worrying,” Junhui admitted.

Wonwoo had the oddest wry expression now. “Were you scared? More or less scared than when you realized, wow, Jeon Wonwoo can forget things sometimes.”

“Don’t do that,” Junhui said.

“Do what?”

Junhui sighed and removed his arm from Wonwoo’s grip so he could sit down beside him. “You get all mean and stuff when you want someone to drop something.”

“And _you_ never let me off the hook even though you’re perfectly conciliatory toward everyone else about things.”

“It’s because I know you,” Junhui said, only half lying. _Because I’ve known you for years. And because I care_. “So when someone else needs something I can only do my best to be polite and understanding, but I don’t know them well enough to really help them. But you’re…” _Special_. “You leave your composition and literature homework to the end because you actually enjoy doing it compared to your other classes. You’d prefer not to go to noraebang at all than with others because they like to get drunk and dance but you just want to sincerely sing ballads. If it weren’t for the fact that you want your backhand to one day be as pretty as Roger Federer’s, you’d spend all day and night lying indoors, letting your already deteriorating eyesight get worse while reading a book with the letters so close to your face someone would think you were trying to eat the pages.”

Wonwoo laughed dryly. “If you knew me so well, Junnie, you’d know that there’s a reason I try to get you to drop things sometimes. I don’t want you to worry. You worry enough as it is. Seeing you worried all the time makes me—”

Junhui turned to look at him, but Wonwoo’s mouth had closed and he didn’t seem like he was going to finish that train of thought.

“If you know all that about me, I spend too much time with you, don’t I?” Wonwoo eventually muttered.

Oh.

It didn’t seem to matter what shape that sentiment took, whether it was, ‘ _you’re so clingy_ ’, or ‘ _stop being so annoying_ ’, or a ‘ _we spend too much time together_ ’, the thought hurt in every form.

Maybe it was because of the way he grew up, never spending longer than a few years in a given place, whether for his dad’s job or because of the divorce. Maybe he was just different.

But what Junhui wanted, more than anything else in the world, was just to hold onto the people he cared about, as long and as tightly as he could, until whatever next cog the universe tossed at him wrenched them apart as always. For someone like him, who never associated the concept of home with any particular location, who was never grounded by a sense of belonging to any one place, he could only anchor himself to the people he met, knitting yarns of familiarity and dependence around friendships, weaving a tight fabric of comfort and affection around found family.

Threads were so easily ripped apart, and Junhui found himself once again chasing frayed hems and unravelled wool.

“I guess,” Junhui said quietly.

“Hm? Look, it’s getting late, we can discuss it later. Let’s just go to bed for now.”

Junhui could feel all of his carefully sewn stitches tying him and Wonwoo together being torn out, or perhaps what he felt tearing was the fibres of his heart. “Yeah,” he agreed evenly, and went back to his own mattress, even though Wonwoo’s hand was tugging him toward his, thinking he shouldn’t have asked anything when he was the one who didn’t want to talk about serious things, and marvelling at the speed with which someone’s mood could deflate.

 

 

 

 

 

This time, when Junhui strolled into the gym, Soonyoung was already on a treadmill, running with a determined look over his face, staring dead ahead at the TV screen in front of him. He didn’t even wave at Junhui when they made eye contact and didn’t seem to notice when Junhui set the treadmill for a quick walk as warm-up before his lifts. In fact, it wasn’t until Junhui finished his squats, rack pulls, dumbbell rows, and pull-ups that Soonyoung finally started his cool-down.

“Have you ever been this fit before in your life?” Seokmin joked, towelling off sweat after his third set of deadlifts.

“You’re joking, but now I run 10k a _day_ ,” Soonyoung panted out. He looked exhausted, but he’d also exerted himself far more than Junhui had ever seen him do cardio before. “Seriously, I’ve done so much cardio I have abs now.”

Wonwoo laughed. “Ooooh, Kwon Soonyoung, are you going to show off your six pack to the varsity tennis team now?”

“Shut up. Not all of us were blessed with naturally low body fat levels like you, okay? I might not look as chiselled as you or whatever but this is impressive for me!”

Junhui patted Soonyoung on a sweaty shoulder. “Don’t worry, Soonyoungie, I’m very impressed. And I think seeing you working this hard is pushing the entire team to work harder so that’s good too.”

Soonyoung smile-grimaced. “Well I have to, don’t I? We drew the same side of the ladder as Rush for prefecturals, and Jooheon-hyung will definitely be on doubles one. If I don’t improve my endurance, we’ll get slaughtered by them. He’s like the energy fairy, I’ve never seen him get tired before.”

“Have you been scouting the enemy then?”

“Nah, Jooheon-hyung and I go way back,” Soonyoung said, reminding Junhui of something Hoseok said in passing once. “You could say he’s the reason I play tennis. Well, started playing tennis, anyway. We were doubles partners when we were kids, and he was really good back then too. I was younger than him, easily impressionable, thought he was the coolest guy in the world. We’re still friends.”

“Surely you mean frenemies.”

Soonyoung’s reply was interrupted by Minghao stepping in and pointing at the pull-up and dip rack they were milled around with an unimpressed look on his face. “Are you all just chatting or is anyone actually using that?”

Junhui smiled brightly and waved his hand. “All yours, little Haohao.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Sorry,” Junhui said, quickly dropping the smile.

“I also told you to stop apologizing.”

There was a moment of tension while they half-watched Minghao do his set of dips, the aggression of the exchange changing the atmosphere significantly even though it was really a side conversation and not part of their discussion. Junhui tried to diffuse the situation by nudging Soonyoung’s still sweaty shoulder. “So why do you still play tennis then? If that’s the reason you started, there’s a reason why you haven’t stopped, right?”

“Oh! Right,” Soonyoung smiled and threw his arm around Seokmin, who initially tried to dodge but then acceded with a laugh. “This guy and I are going to become the number one national doubles team. We’re going to have the entire country cheering for us, aren’t we, Seokgu?”

“You got it, hyung~”

“Why, Junhui? What’s your reason for playing tennis then?”

Junhui shrugged. “It’s a sport that makes sense, isn’t it? You work hard, get the right coaching, reflect on yourself and your opponent, and it ultimately pays off. When you can win something fair and square, that’s fun. And it’s a constant. You could be anywhere in the whole world, but as long as you have a ball, a racket, a couple of friends…you’ll always have tennis.”

“Wonwoo-goon?”

“What?” Wonwoo was staring blankly ahead, vaguely in the same direction as Minghao finishing up his last reps.

“What’s your reason for playing tennis?” Soonyoung gestured grandly.

Wonwoo’s gaze softened. “Tennis is how you can really prove yourself. It’s not like a team sport, because you play just one on one. If you win it’s because of you, but if you lose it’s also your own fault.”

“Typical,” Seokmin said, shaking his head but smiling.

“It’s such a singles player thing to think that you’re facing the world alone.”

“But you do,” Wonwoo said, scratching at the back of an ear with a bemused expression. “You come into the world alone, you leave it alone, you face all your own battles.”

“Afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one, mate, you’re talking to three doubles players.”

Minghao slid past them again to get to the cable set-up on the other side of them, muttering, “If you’re done working out, isn’t it easier to chat outside?”

Seokmin prodded Minghao in the side as he went, giggling at the resulting glare. “Alright, might as well head to lunch then.”

“Wait, Soonyoung.” Junhui pulled him back while the other two headed off to the change rooms.

“What’s up?”

“I know this is going to sound like a weird request but since you’re friends with Rush’s tennis team, can you get me Shin Hoseok’s number?”

“Hoseok-hyung’s number?” Soonyoung waggled his eyebrows.

“If you ask it like that it’s weird. I just wanted to ask him something.”

“Ask him something?” Soonyoung continued wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. “I didn’t know you two even knew each other.”

“We’ve met a couple of times but I didn’t think to get contact information from him—please stop doing that with your eyebrows,” Junhui pleaded, feeling his face heat up just from Soonyoung’s suggestiveness.

“Aw! Moon Joon’s getting all shy!” Soonyoung elbowed him playfully. “I’ll ask Jooheon-hyung for it and text it over later, is that okay?”

“Thank you Soonyoungie, I owe you one.”

Soonyoung made a clicking sound with his tongue and cocked his fingers at Junhui. “Don’t worry bro. Things like this? I’ve got your back.”

 

 

 

 

 

By Sunday, Junhui had gotten Hoseok’s number from Soonyoung and left him a message, although his good intentions were somewhat belayed by Hoseok informing him, ‘ _oh, a pipa’s actually plucked! i’m not really familiar with the instrument myself_.’ The text was followed up by, ‘ _but i’d love to hear someone else play it, so i’ll accept your invite! thanks :)_ ’.

“Who’s Hoseok?” Wonwoo asked, dangling over Junhui’s shoulders, his broad chest warm against Junhui’s back.

“He’s on Rush’s tennis team, we met a few times. Are you reading my phone over my shoulder?” Junhui asked, making no move to hide his phone or push Wonwoo away. He was sitting at his study desk, history notes abandoned for a webtoon.

“I’m bored and you seemed busy. Anyway, you’re already inviting him to things and you’ve only met a few times? Why don’t you invite me to anything?”

Junhui snorted. “As if you couldn’t just invite yourself. Do you want to go to Kyulkyung’s show, Wonwoo?”

Wonwoo’s jaw worked against the side of Junhui’s head but he didn’t say anything.

“I thought so. It’s actually related to his major so I thought I’d extend the offer. Just trying to be nice.”

“You’re always so nice to other people,” Wonwoo grumbled.

“How would you like me to be nice to you then?”

“For starters, you can ask me what I plan on doing with the rest of the weekend…”

Junhui set his phone down. “Okay, Wonwoo, what are you planning on doing the rest of the weekend?”

Wonwoo leaned down, wrapping his arms around Junhui’s neck, so his mouth was just beside Junhui’s ear and whispered, “You.”

“God, and you tell me my jokes are bad,” Junhui whined, but he was raising his arms so Wonwoo could peel his shirt off and spinning around in his seat even as he said it.

 

 

 

 

 

The morning after Jieqiong’s show, Junhui woke up groggy and almost late for practice, jogging with Wonwoo to the courts with their tennis bags, and then having to run laps for warmup immediately afterward.

“I’m sick of running,” Wonwoo muttered beside him. “My fight or flight instincts have been completely shut off now I just want to sleep for 24 hours straight.”

“Didn’t you sleep for, like, ten hours last night? You were already in bed when I got back.”

“That’s not the point, Junnie.” Wonwoo huffed and then pulled ahead, making Junhui laugh. He picked up his own pace a bit, and then thought better of it, giving Wonwoo space and hanging back. Minghao had pulled up to the front as well, and Junhui jogged a ways behind the two of them who were neck and neck at the front of the pack.

It reminded Junhui of something Hoseok had mentioned the night prior, about being worried for his team if Junhui and Minghao were second doubles.

“We’re not that good,” Junhui admitted truthfully.

“Not that good? You’re telling me when we played you that was the first time you paired up together though. That’s insane, I’m terrified. Not to downplay you two, but if you’re doubles two, I can’t imagine what your first doubles team is like, and I can’t imagine us getting through to finals past you guys. We’re going to have to play qualifiers for nationals this year.”

And before Junhui could explain that somehow, he and Minghao had gotten worse since the summer, Jieqiong had pulled Hoseok away and they’d chatted up a storm, getting on like a house on fire.

“When I said watch out for her, I definitely didn’t mean introduce her to sketchy men you barely know yourself,” Xuanyi had berated when the two of them were out of earshot.

“Hoseok-hyung’s always been really nice! Even though we met in the middle of an argument,” Junhui protested. “And look, now they have someone they can talk to about their musical interests.”

“It doesn’t matter. You can’t trust men.”

Then Jieqiong’s girlfriend had shown up with flowers, whisked her away, and Hoseok offered to escort Xuanyi back to Rush. Junhui’d gotten a text an hour later from her that read, ‘ _I guess he’s alright_ ,’ and that had been the end of that.

Thinking about it now, Junhui wondered how he and Minghao had ended up on such wrong footing. They played their best games when they weren’t talking, actually, and instead let their training and muscle memory do most of the work. It felt like they should work well together, and could work together, but in reality they didn’t. Sometimes partnerships were strictly professional, and if they disagreed off the court that was one thing, but it was affecting their play as well.

“Hello Pleiades men’s tennis team!” Jeonghan waited until they were all finished their laps to greet them, a smile on his lips and his hands on his hips. “I have good news for everyone…someone gifted me a brand new juicer!”

The announcement was met with silence and confusion, although a few people who hadn’t quite woken up clapped politely due to the tone of his voice.

Jeonghan didn’t seem bothered by the lack of response. “So I wondered what would be the best first juice to try, and it just so happened that balsam-pears were on sale at the market. So today, every time you drop a ball during your drill challenges, you’ll get to have a lovely shot of balsam-pear juice to motivate you to do better next time~”

The challenge for the doubles players was a series of short court games, restricted to the service boxes, aimed at improving quick-paced net play. They cycled around points of ten so each pair could get a chance at a different team, with two of the coaching staff pairing up as well.

“He said it was just pear juice right?” Minghao asked tightly, staring down into the frothy green drink after their first loss.

“Balsam-pear,” Junhui said, “also known as bitter melon. This stuff doesn’t taste good, not even to me.” He clinked his plastic cup against Minghao’s and then scrunched up his face to toss the liquid back in a single gulp, aiming to get all of it down his throat with as little touching his tongue as possible.

“This is disgusting. Has Jeonghan-hyung tried any of these drinks himself before giving them to us? When they say Pleiades has a decent varsity tennis team, do they really just mean they have a inhumane punishment system?”

“I think it’s just Jeonghan-hyung,” Junhui said.

Minghao darted his head around, quickly checking to hear Jeonghan hadn’t overheard. “Don’t let him catch you saying anything bad about him.”

They shared a laugh and then abruptly stopped, both painfully aware that this was the most normal they’d been in weeks. Bonding through suffering, or something like that.

Junhui couldn’t tell if the drill went better after that because the air between them lightened, or if it was just the nature of a net drill with someone who was a serve and volley kind of player like Xu Minghao. They won most of their games, although they’d also lost costly points off of rookie mistakes, like going for the same ball and colliding, or neither going for a ball on the line because they thought the other would get it.

By the end of morning practice, whether through disgust or the greenness of the juice itself, most of the team had a green sickly complexion, a far-cry from the normal red-faced sweaty gaggle they normally were, but Junhui and Minghao walked back to the locker room together. It wasn’t the kind of situation where he felt like he could put an arm around Minghao companionably, but Minghao also wasn’t doing his best to get away from him as quickly as possible, and that rather settled the churning bitter gourd in Junhui’s stomach, keeping him rosy instead of grassy.

“That wasn’t bad, you two,” Seungcheol called, cleaning up a table with half-empty plastic cups. “Always could be better, but I think we were worried…I mean the coaches. You’d started off really well at the beginning but it seemed to be getting worse for a bit. Although progress can be like that, sometimes, you have to do worse before you can do better.”

“Sorry,” Junhui apologized quickly. “It’s my fault, captain. Minghao was learning and picked things up faster than anyone I’ve seen who was a beginner in doubles, but I wasn’t adapting well to a new partner, or doing my job as the senior.”

Seungcheol shook his head. “I’m not Jeonghan, there’s not going to be an extra round of penalties or something. I’m just glad that things are working out.”

As soon as Seungcheol was gone, hoisting up the fold-up plastic table by himself like it weighed nothing, Minghao whirled on Junhui.

“Who asked you to do that?”

“What?”

“Who asked you to say all that crap? ‘Cause it definitely wasn’t me.”

Junhui furrowed his brows. “Huh? Slow down, what are you talking about?”

“That apology! We both know we’re both part of the problem, there was absolutely no need for you to go claim all the blame by yourself. Do you think I’m going to be grateful to you for doing that? Do you think you needed to defend me or something? Well stop thinking whatever shit you’re thinking, because I’m not going to thank you for it!”

He stormed off without giving Junhui a chance to express his confusion, still baffled that the exchange with Seungcheol could have turned their pleasantry into anger after he arrived at the change rooms. He sat on the bench across from his locker, staring blankly at the ground and taking slow sips from his water bottle, long after it was already empty.

Soon it wasn’t just the bottle in his hand that was empty, but the dressing room itself, everyone finished up in the showers and running off to class or breakfast or to grab a nap somewhere before they had things to do. Still, Junhui sat there, faces flashing across his mind and snippets of conversations past being re-lived. Mingming, Dongjin, Minghao. Wonwoo. And then again, in a different order.

Suddenly, twelve-year-old Wonwoo’s face morphed into twenty-two-year-old Wonwoo’s face, and the present version of him was staring down at Junhui’s face, waving a hand to try to get catch his attention.

“Earth to Junhui…has your soul been abducted by aliens?”

Junhui leaned back with a start, knocking his head against the wall painfully, and then doubling over with his hands over the sore spot, face contorted into a weird expression while Wonwoo laughed at him.

“Were you waiting for me? I thought I told you I was going to work with coach on something but I can’t remember now if I did or not.”

“No, I—” Junhui broke off, surprised at how small and unlike himself his own voice sounded.

Wonwoo didn’t say anything, but he pulled Junhui toward him into a weirdly positioned hug, Junhui’s face pressed against Wonwoo’s abs, and Wonwoo’s hands rubbing gently at the back of Junhui’s head where he’d hit it against the wall.

“Let’s shower,” Wonwoo suggested after a few moments.

“Together?” Junhui eked out.

“Do you see anyone else here?”

And there wasn’t anyone else there in the locker room, so there wasn’t anyone to see Junhui with his back pressed against the wall, the shower valve digging into his side, and Wonwoo on his knees in front of him, the spray of water going over his back while he sucked Junhui dry, not leaving a drop for the drains to claim.

 

 

 

 

 

“We’re going to win this,” Minghao said matter-of-factly, tapping Junhui’s racket with his own in a move that vaguely resembled a high-five.

To say that the words surprised Junhui was a vast understatement. He’d expected Minghao to still be angry with him, and although Minghao didn’t exactly have a warm face on, staring out at their opponents across the court, the racket tap was an almost _friendly_ gesture that came off as worryingly out of character.

Neo Tech was a school that seemed to have revamped their entire tennis program, turning from a school who, in the year prior, hadn’t made it past the first round of the district tournament to a team that won their tournament. Because they were new, no one had much intel on them, but it was obvious from the way the taller of the doubles two pair kept swearing under his breath in Mandarin every time he missed something that he was an international student.

“ _You know we can understand you right_?” Minghao eventually asked in Chinese during a court change.

And though it didn’t seem to faze the guy, it brought out a certain competitive spirit in his partner, who started saying things they couldn’t understand in Japanese. Junhui and Minghao had shared an amused glance at that, and then proceeded to give him more to rant about, closing out some strong rallies with fast smashes, out of reach lobs, and quick volleys in a performance reminiscent of their summer first foray into doubles tennis together.

As the last ball rolled out of play, Junhui turned, ready to give Minghao a fierce hug, but Minghao was already waiting with his racket stuck out, keeping the distance between them. “Yay,” Minghao deadpanned. “We won.” He smiled after that, and gave Junhui a quick pat on the back.

“Thanks.”

“I don’t know what you’re thanking me for, but whatever.”

Junhui started to open his mouth, ready to explain his gratitude at Minghao having left the previous disagreement behind them but Minghao didn’t let him continue.

“Let’s just get off the courts so Seokmin and Soonyoung-hyung can get to winning their game too.”

That was something Junhui could agree with easily, and they scooted in with the rest of the team in the stands.

“You look like an idiot smiling like that,” Wonwoo leaned over to say.

Junhui had to physically pull at his face to find a neutral expression, but when he looked over, Wonwoo had a soft smile on his own face.

Over the hour that followed afterward, the mood in their portion of the stands drastically went down as Soonyoung and Seokmin lost in three sets, the last points stretching on in contests of concentration and endurance, and finally, Soonyoung snapped, collapsing on Seokmin and being dragged off after the final tie break ended seven points to love.

Wonwoo passed them walking back from his warm-ups, and gave Soonyoung’s shoulder a long squeeze before entering the courts.

“I’ve got you,” Wonwoo said clearly, loud enough for the other team’s bench to hear, throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of their third singles’ player with iron in his voice.

Soonyoung nodded, murmured something that might have been an apology, and then tucked his chin over Seokmin’s shoulder for a long, sweaty kind of hug.

“I think I kind of get it now,” Minghao said.

Junhui blinked. “You kind of get what?”

“Doubles.” Minghao slid along the bench to make space for Soonyoung and Seokmin, glued together at the shoulders, ending up thigh to thigh with Junhui. And for the entirety of Wonwoo’s match, despite Junhui’s restless leg, twiddling thumbs, hemming and hawing, and other fidgeting movements and bursts of noise, Minghao didn’t complain one bit.

 

 

 

 

 

“I know you want to spend the rest of the day sleeping, but are you planning on letting _me_ get up at all?” Junhui asked Wonwoo’s naked chest. Had Wonwoo always slept shirtless and Junhui been turned around too often to notice?

The response was Junhui being hugged tighter, and a leg going over his waist to trap him there further. “Why?” Wonwoo asked, his voice gruff and sleepy. “Can you honestly think of a better way to spend time than sleeping with me?”

The next round of prefecturals wasn’t to be held until the following weekend, which gave them an extra Sunday off to relax. The girls’ team played the first round of their prefectural tournament today, and the plan was to meet at a _samgyeopsal_ restaurant in the evening for food and drinks. Junhui was partway through an essay due Monday morning, and he needed to spend the day finishing it, especially since Saturday night after their matches had been spent, as Wonwoo might have put it, ‘celebrating’.

Jeon Wonwoo’s idea of celebrating had flair, Junhui would give him that. It’d involved the longest orgasm denial experience of Junhui’s life, which in some way described his entire sexual relationship with Wonwoo, but at some point the words, “Please tell me you’re going to let me come before tomorrow,” had passed Junhui’s trembling lips and Wonwoo had just cupped a hand around Junhui and smiled without an answer.

“I can actually,” Junhui said, poking a finger against Wonwoo’s sternum. “It’s called food? Have you heard of it? It’s a cool thing, helps keep people alive, you know.”

“No clue what you’re talking about,” Wonwoo replied, breath skittering over Junhui’s scalp.

Then, five minutes later, Wonwoo’s stomach rumbled loudly, and they rolled out of bed together, picked up breakfast to eat in their rooms, and ended up side-by-side on Junhui’s bed, Junhui typing on the laptop in front of him, Wonwoo squinting at his own notes, trying to cram for a test.

The peace lasted for all of an hour or two. Junhui was revising his thesis based on the research he’d sifted through when Wonwoo started prodding at him with his toes, and then slapping him with his hand, a pillow…

“You know, we’re not all geniuses like you. I actually have to spend time on this essay, even if you’re done studying.”

Wonwoo whacked at him again with the pillow. “I can’t study. My head hurts too much to keep reading.”

“Wouldn’t come from you squinting all day, would it?” Junhui hit save on his work and looked up. “You know, headaches are definitely a sign you need glasses.”

“Don’t be silly, how would I play tennis wearing glasses?”

“How will you play tennis if you can’t see?”

“I can clearly see, did you miss me winning the game yesterday or something?”

“Half of that is based on predictions, you’re just really good at knowing where someone’s going to try to hit the ball. But what if your eyesight is what prevents you from being able to judge if something’s in or out one day. Wouldn’t it suck to lose a point off of something like that?”

Wonwoo shook his head. “Glasses will mess with my depth perception. And I’ve been working on spin control to use shot prediction against my opponents to better effect, we’ve got it so I can pretty much neutralize, if not reverse backspin and make flat returns bounce where I want them to.”

“You can’t control physics,” Junhui said.

“Maybe not, but you can control the ball, and in a lot of ways, you can control your opponent too. Say I hit a crosscourt to your forehand and you have the entire side open. What are you going to do? Down the line or drop shot. It’s obvious, and when people are predictable, you can control them.”

“But what happens if your prediction is wrong? People don’t like being controlled.”

“That’s not the point. The point is I don’t want glasses. Nor do I want to study.”

Junhui sighed. “If you go, I don’t know, write whatever it is you write about in your notebook for, like, fifteen minutes, I’ll write up my conclusion and then we can do whatever you want.”

After a while, Junhui piped up again. “Are you sure you don’t want to go find Jihoon to play video games or something? I know Soonyoung said he was going to go watch the girls’ matches but I’m sure he can be convinced to do something else.”

Wonwoo didn’t look up. “Don’t you think I, of all people, know what I want for myself, Junnie?”

 

 

 

 

 

“We’re going to try recording something together for his final project! Hoseok-oppa is really good at _guzheng_ and he’s not even Chinese, it’s pretty impressive.”

“So you want me to, what, just carry your pipa to Rush for you?”

Jieqiong’s girlfriend interrupted huffily. “It’s not even that heavy, I told you I can do it if you want help.”

“Yebinnie, you don’t understand, Junhui-oppa _likes_ doing things like this. Also, Xuanyi-unnie said she was going to buy us all dinner, and food for manual labour is a pretty good deal.”

“Of course I’ll do it,” Junhui said frowning when he reached down for his shot glass and couldn’t find it. “If we time it right I can go spy on their tennis team before we play them too.”

“Here,” Wonwoo muttered, passing Junhui a cup before sliding in to sit beside him. Junhui smiled at Wonwoo gratefully and held the glass in his hand.

Jieqiong motioned to Yebin to get up, seemingly still wary of Wonwoo. “I’ll message you the morning of, okay? Please try not to be late.”

Junhui nodded, and then waved goodbye at them as they flittered over to their original table, before taking a sip of his drink. He stared down at the clear soda, betrayed, as if the drink itself had scammed him somehow. “This is cider?” He said incredulously to Wonwoo.

Wonwoo patted his arm. “We need you to cook and if you have anymore soju I think there’s a bit of a risk of fire so…”

“It’s just barbecuing meat,” Soonyoung said lightly, holding his can of beer loosely. “How hard could it be? We can do it without Moon Joon.”

“Uh, no,” Jihoon said sternly, levelling Soonyoung with a look. “Drunk Junhui is a risk, but you’re an active fire hazard. We all remember what happened last time you tried to cook, Kwon fire, and it ain’t happening again on our watch.”

“Oh,” Junhui said quietly, resting his head sideways on Wonwoo’s shoulder. In that sitting position he picked up the metal tongs with his right hand and used them to start spreading the raw pork on the grill, scissors snipping with his left hand. “Well, I mean, I also like cider.”

“Yes, I know,” Wonwoo said, tone full of amusement. “And you like food that isn’t burnt. We all like food that isn’t burnt.”

Nayoung turned to them at that moment, a plate in her hand. “Hey, Jihoon, can you pass this down to the last table? I think they were the ones who wanted more _ssam-mu_ but the waiter mixed us up.”

“Um, sure.” Jihoon held his hands out flat so she could place the dish on top without them brushing hands and then blinked after she turned away again, much to Soonyoung’s amusement.

“Shut up,” Jihoon said, covering his hand with his shirtsleeve in order to poke the next person down to relay the information.

“I rarely see Jihoonie this proper terrified, of course I’m going to laugh,” Soonyoung protested.

“Look, I need my personal space, okay?” Jihoon mimed an imaginary box around himself. “I’m not like these two,” he said, waving in front of him at Junhui and Wonwoo with his hands, “I can’t do all this touching and clingy bullshit.”

The word ‘clingy’ had the same sobering effect on Junhui as being splashed with water, and he sat up, removing his weight from Wonwoo’s shoulder and then leaned forward to pass cooked strips of meat out in attempt to hide the fact that it was a direct response to Jihoon’s comment.

“Rubbish. You’re over twenty. By this point you should know that accidentally brushing up against someone isn’t going to transfer your tennis prowess over to them or something,” Soonyoung scoffed. “And physical affection is a good way to connect people, grounds you among your peers you know? In the middle of a game, a high five can shift the entire momentum, pump you up and all that.”

Jihoon waved his hand again. “I don’t know why you doubles players are always about teamwork or whatever. The point of tennis is that it’s a sport you play by yourself, but you and Seokmin have your brains connected or something.” He wrinkled his nose. “More accurately, it’s like each of you only got one half of a full brain…”

“That’s just fucking mean, Jihoon,” Soonyoung complained.

Jihoon just smiled. “Do you get it, Wonwoo? Their doubles shit?”

“Nah.” Wonwoo snickered. “Singles is where it’s at.”

 

 

 

 

 

Junhui handed in his essay Monday morning and then went through the rest of his classes for the day like a zombie, utterly exhausted. Dinner dispersed fairly early as drinks went, and Junhui had managed to fall asleep quickly thanks to the alcohol in his system, but it had also woken him five hours later, which was earlier than Junhui needed to be awake on days when they had morning practices, which they didn’t, precisely because of the events the night before.

When Mingyu came looking for him, Junhui stared him straight in the face for a solid thirty seconds before processing that someone was in front of him and trying to talk.

“I’ve been looking for you!”

“Me?” Junhui tried to point at his own nose but missed and his finger slid sideways into his cheek instead.

“Yes, hyung. Come up to ours for dinner and a chat, will you? There’s seafood stew.”

“Wonwoo doesn’t like seafood,” Junhui said automatically.

“Well, Wonwoo-hyung isn’t invited.”

“Oh. Should I follow you?” Junhui asked.

Mingyu tilted his head. “Yeah, come along then.”

Mingyu and Minghao stayed in the west block dorms, and along the walk, Junhui grew envious realizing just how much closer they were to the tennis courts than where he stayed.

“You’re right, but it’s a hell of a walk from the gym where we have volleyball practice,” Mingyu said when Junhui mentioned as much to him. “Not so bad now but in the winter it’s like going for a polar bear dip every morning.” He cupped a hand around Junhui’s ear conspiratorially. “This is the excuse I say to Minghao whenever I want him to do something and feel bad about it, actually, although it hasn’t quite been working in this case.”

“In what case?”

“You’ll see.”

Mingyu motioned for Junhui to step inside ahead of them when they finally reached their rooms.

At the sound of the door opening, Minghao stepped out of the bathroom, a towel around his neck catching water droplets from his wet hair. “Mingyu, is that you? What were you saying about dinner?”

Then the door closed behind Junhui, and when Junhui looked back for Mingyu’s answer, he found him gone.

Minghao stared for a moment before rolling his eyes.

“Uh…he was just there? Should I go look for him?” Junhui raised his hand and then slowly closed his fingers so he could stick a thumb behind him.

“He said he was going to pull something like this, but I didn’t think he was being serious.” Minghao turned around and walked up to a table with two seafood flavoured ramyeons sitting on the top and laughed. “At least he was serious about the food too.”

“Um…should I leave?”

Minghao shook his head and beckoned him over. “I mean, you can, but if you do I feel like he’ll just do this stunt again so you might as well sit and eat while I say a bunch of shit and then I can yell at him in peace.”

Junhui slowly ambled over and took a seat.

“It’s Mingyu, so it might not be entirely clean, but the food will be edible at least,” Minghao prompted, encouraging Junhui to pick up the pair of disposable chopsticks resting above the second untouched ramyeon cup.

They ate without speaking, Minghao slurping down his noodles and soup at lightspeed, while Junhui was still trying to get a hold of his bearings and took ginger bites, swallowing only after many methodical chews.

“Just so you know, you don’t have to reply to what I’m saying.”

Junhui nodded.

Minghao sighed. “Okay…I don’t really know where to start. I still can’t believe Mingyu did this, he knows I was at least a little bit tipsy when I came home last night and told him that shit.”

“Fun…roommate…” Junhui offered, aware that Minghao probably didn’t want him to speak, but feeling too awkward in the silence to not say anything.

“No, Mingyu’s a shitty roommate, and a shitty friend, but he’s at the same time a great roommate and my best friend.” Minghao laughed and put his elbows on the table, and then his head in his hands. “Why, do you have a fun roommate experience?”

Junhui made a face. “Wonwoo is…Wonwoo.”

“Are you two fucking?” Minghao asked bluntly.

The noodles slid out of Junhui’s mouth and splashed back into the soup in his cup. “Wh-wh-wha-what?! Where on earth did you get that idea from?”

Minghao stared at him. “I went back to the change rooms to grab something Seokmin forgot before prefecturals and Wonwoo-hyung was sucking your dick in the showers.”

“That…I can see how that _might_ have given you that idea…” Junhui said weakly, wishing desperately never to hear that combination of words from his doubles partner’s mouth again.

“Right.” Minghao stirred the remnants of his soup with his chopsticks, a sticky and uncomfortable silence settling over them again. “That wasn’t what I was going to talk about though, but…”

Junhui didn’t have a single word to offer.

“It, like, really grated on me when you were all chipper and happy and trying so hard all the time when we were playing matches and in practice and stuff. I thought it was totally fake, and you were really weird, and I guess I assumed the worst. People aren’t just super nice all the time, right? So I read everything as being kind of phoney and it made me wonder if I’d given up on singles for nothing, so I was a bit short with you. Especially when we had that conversation with Seungcheol and you stuck up for me when it didn’t benefit you at all, I don’t know, that really riled me up.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think that it would come off like that. I just felt responsible being older, and playing for longer…I know I can be clingy, so I genuinely thought it was my fault.”

Minghao looked up finally, and finding Junhui’s face as open as they came, he sighed. “Mingyu said you’re genuinely well intentioned, but I didn’t really think about it like that…I always thought Wonwoo-hyung had the patience of a saint being so good-natured whenever you two were together, but I guess I realized, you’re clingy with him because you like him, not because of anything else.”

Junhui wet his lips to say that their relationship wasn’t about liking each other but the explanation got sidetracked when Minghao continued.

“So I figured you weren’t trying to force yourself to be my partner or something, you actually wanted to be, I don’t know, friends. I’d gotten you wrong. And I believe that you’re sincere…” He pushed back his chair. “I hope this clears the air or whatever, I don’t really know what Mingyu was expecting from this but, let’s work hard together, right? Bring home nationals and all that.”

“Right.”

Like Minghao could read Junhui’s mind, he immediately yelled, “No hugging though! I don’t mean ever, but it still weirds me out that you can be so touchy with strangers so just. I’ll try not to be so critical, but it would help if you gave me a bit more space. Less clinginess and overbearingness.”

“If you let him grow in space he’ll end up hugging you himself,” came Mingyu’s voice from the doorway.

“Yah, Kim, have you been eavesdropping? I swear to god, I’m pissed enough at you as it is.”

Mingyu laughed. “I just came back to check that you two were actually talking, and that you hadn’t made Moon Joonhwi-hyung run away yet. If you’re all good here though I can leave.”

“Junhui and I are done talking,” Minghao said. “You and I on the other hand…We’re just getting started.”

 

 

 

 

 

The effects of their conversation were staggering. After the usual warm up, conditioning, and movement drills, doubles practice was training for ball decisions, one coach sending fast serves down the line interspersed with ones across the court. The goal was to communicate who would go for which balls when, based on their court positions, while another coach yelled feedback after poor choices. The last time Junhui and Minghao had attempted this together, they were screamed at for an entire afternoon, but since they were talking civilly to each other now, the drill went much more smoothly, and they earned a nod by the finish, which was the equivalent to a seal of approval.

Seungcheol’s clap on the back afterward was more forceful than usual. In fact, the entire practice he’d seemed to have been vibrating with more energy than usual, and when Jeonghan showed up near the end, it became apparent why.

Despite the weather, Jeonghan was wearing sunglasses and shorts, and he sauntered onto the courts where the singles players were still finishing up their drills with a wide grin. “Is everyone excited to go to the beach?”

“Jeonghan! Yoon! Jeong! Han!” Seungcheol was stomping his foot on the ground like a slighted child, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I was going to tell them that! Why did you steal my thunder?”

“Oh! You haven’t told them?” Jeonghan giggled and covered his mouth. “Oops! Well, not everyone heard me, so you can say it again, if you like, captain.” He leaned over to the nearest first year and stage-whispered “But we all know he’s second rate news.”

The team gathered together in front of Seungcheol before starting cool-downs, the news spreading quickly in hushed whispers. Junhui stood in the back, between Wonwoo and Soonyoung. When Wonwoo looped an arm around his shoulders, Junhui took a step back, raised his arms over his head for a quick stretch, and then returned. Wonwoo didn’t try to put his arm around him a second time.

“So, like what’s been said, after tallying up the votes, we can tell you the beach house for the weekend training camp won by a landslide.” Here Seungcheol glared at Jeonghan, who smiled mildly back. “Since it’s a longer drive to Changwon, we’re going to leave on Friday afternoon instead of Saturday morning, so don’t plan on attending any big parties. But…We’re also only booked on the courts for the weekend so there might be some free time in the city instead.”

“Yahoo! The beach!” Soonyoung cheered, arms going straight to Seokmin’s waist for a hug. “No more running up a mountain!”

“Running on sand is not that fun either,” Jihoon pointed out, hands on his lower back and leaning sideways in a stretch that made him look like an old man. “And it’ll be cold.”

“It’s either running on sand, or running on that freaking treadmill, either way it’s cardio and it sucks, but at least at the beach I can look out at the ocean once in a while or something,” Soonyoung said optimistically. “I’m going to have to run a marathon or something this week to train.” He leaned over his leg to stretch out his hamstring.

“Still running?”

“Yeah, well, Rush is coming up right? Their line-up is usually pretty set. Hyungwon and Minhyuk on second singles, Jooheon-hyung and Changkyunnie on first. I mean, I know that’s their line-up, Jooheon and Changkyun have said as much. I can’t play Jooheon-hyung and win unless my stamina is comparable.”

“Hoseok-hyung said Kihyun plays third singles, he plays second…that’ll be an interesting match-up won’t it? Hoseok-hyung’s a power player, so is the captain…it’ll be a strength showdown,” Junhui mused. “Who’s on first?”

“Hyunwoo-hyung,” Soonyoung replied. “It’s going to be a tough set of matches, and we _have_ to get past them if we want to make nationals.”

“Are you saying you think he can beat me?” Jihoon growled.

Soonyoung laughed. “Did that hurt your pride? We’ll get through. Anyway, enough of that, I just thought of something…If we’re going to Changwon, Wonwoo, any chance we can hit up your place?”

Wonwoo looked up at the eyes on him with a distracted expression. “Sure, yeah. If there aren’t that many people. I’m not throwing a party.”

“Well now that you’ve mentioned it…”

“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “My parents don’t live in the house there anymore, and my brother’s at school anyway. If you think it’s worth the clean-up effort when our schedule’s going to have practices starting by at least or eight or nine in the morning…”

“Dear God,” Soonyoung said, looking skyward, “why are all of my friends huge party poopers? Sincerely, Kwon Soonyoung.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Are you headed over to Rush now?”

Junhui nodded. “Well, Kyulkyung’s and then to Rush, yeah.”

Wonwoo cracked his neck on either side. “If you wait three minutes, I’m just uploading my presentation, once I’m done I’ll come with. You’re just bringing her thing with you right? We can chill at Goto for a bit before you’ve got to pick her up again to come back.”

“That mall is always packed, do you really wanna go shop when you can just buy your clothes online?” Junhui laughed.

“What are you going to do while they’re working for however long?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s fine. Hoseok-hyung said I could watch if I’m quiet, and Xuanyi and Kyulkyung have something planned for afterward, I think.” Junhui offered up an easy smile. “I feel like you’ll enjoy having space too, the room to yourself for an evening. This way you can yell at your games however loud you want and I won’t be around to stop you.”

“Probably just going to eat dinner, study, and go to sleep, if I’m honest,” Wonwoo muttered.

“I’ll try to be as quiet as I can when I come back then, so I don’t wake you,” Junhui promised.

Wonwoo sighed. “Junnie…”

“Yeah?”

“Just,” instead of finishing his sentence, Wonwoo took a step forward and grabbed a fistful of Junhui’s shirt. He yanked him forward, smashing their lips together. It was a kiss oddly lacking in finesse from Wonwoo, and it felt, to Junhui, like he was having a tongue shoved down his throat.

“If you want a quickie you’re going to have to be _really_ fast,” Junhui said.

Wonwoo stared at his mouth, chest rising and falling heavily. “That’s not—” His gaze flickered up to Junhui’s eyes and died there. “Never mind. Just…just go.”

 

 

 

 

 

True to his word, Wonwoo was asleep by the time Junhui got back, albeit fitfully. Junhui hovered over his bed for a while, hand smoothing back Wonwoo’s hair from his face until whatever night terror was coaxed away, and he stayed there a few moments more, afterward. It wasn’t the kind of thing he could get away with while they were both awake, but it eased something in him, seeing Wonwoo resting.

In the morning, Wonwoo was still asleep when Junhui headed down to the cafeteria to grab a bite before class, and they didn’t see each other until afternoon practice, when most of the first-stringers were around the court instead of in the change rooms when Junhui got there.

“Junhui-hyung!”

“Dongjinnie?!”

He ran forward and didn’t hesitate to drop his tennis bag before pulling Dongjin into a tight hug.

“Hyung…I can’t breathe…”

“Oh, sorry,” Junhui said, quickly taking a step back.

But then Dongjin was hugging him again, just in a looser embrace, and Junhui felt a burst of warmth in his chest.

“So what are you doing here anyway?” Soonyoung asked, tickling at Dongjin’s side the exact same way he did a year ago, as if no time had passed whatsoever.

“I’m on reading break and I should be studying, but I figured I’d drop by. I heard you guys won prettily handily in first round of prefecturals?”

“Without your help,” Soonyoung said and laughed, not meaning anything cruel by the comment.

“Congrats,” Dongjin said shyly. “I’d better let you guys go practice so you can do well in the next set of matches too…”

“You’re not going to stay to watch?”

Dongjin shook his head. “I don’t think I have the time. Although, Junhui-hyung…”

Soonyoung tapped his nose, and started pushing an irritated Jihoon toward the lockers. “Doubles partners,” Soonyoung said knowingly. “I _so_ get you.”

After the others had left, Junhui continued staring at Dongjin, still in disbelief that he was really there. It has been weeks since districts, and months since they last talked, but this man, boy really, still oozed a comforting familiarity. Soonyoung had his finger on something, Junhui’s doubles partnerships always gave a sense that he belonged somewhere, that he slotted home.

“I came to watch your first match actually,” Dongjin said, soft-spoken as ever. “I got quite worried that you wouldn’t be able to find another partner and play first string this year, but the game went really well. I was very glad.”

“And you didn’t stay to chat?” Junhui asked, poking him in the neck.

Dongjin laughed and prodded back. “I wanted to, but I didn’t know what to say…I guess I felt bad because I had to leave but it wasn’t something I wanted to do. I would have liked to still be playing but…well, I guess it all still worked out in the end, so I’m relieved.”

“It did work out,” Junhui agreed. “Are you still playing tennis?”

“No, it’s just study study study for me,” Dongjin said. He looked up, a bit to the side, and scrunched up his face. “I can’t imagine it anyway, playing tennis without Junhui-hyung as a partner? No one pinching my cheeks after every point? Hugging me hard enough I can’t breathe? Nah, it’d be too weird.”

Junhui bit his tongue and looked down. “I’m sorry. I must’ve been pretty clingy and annoying to deal with as a partner.”

“It wasn’t for you to apologize!” Dongjin said quickly. “You made tennis better, hyung. Honest. You always made me feel like I was a part of the team, even though I was so much younger than everyone else and you had to work with my tennis style as new partners. Actually, I wanted to apologize to you.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Junhui said quickly. “That’s…let’s not say sorry if neither of us regrets last year.”

Dongjin grinned. “Alright. You better win nationals.”

“We’ll show up on the news after, and you can tell everyone you know that we used to be a team,” Junhui promised.

There was sunshine shining out of every crevice in the locker room, flowers blooming from the cracks in the pavement leading up to the tennis courts. He ran warm-up laps like his body was weightless, chased after every single ball during drills, and drank Jeonghan’s pitch black herbal tea with a smile on his face, and the satisfying taste of freshness coating his insides.

Junhui’s entire body roared with life, and happiness at being alive.

 

 

 

 

 

Somewhere after the third handsfree orgasm Junhui stopped keeping count, figuratively head up in the clouds on an unending high although he was vaguely aware of the possibility that his physical position involved using Wonwoo’s arm as a pillow.

“You’re awfully happy,” Wonwoo said, a hand carding through Junhui’s hair.

Junhui lifted his head, forcing Wonwoo to stop petting him, and moved away so that that they were lying facing each other, only their knees touching.

“I can’t even remember what being unhappy feels like,” Junhui said softly.

Wonwoo hummed.

“Hey, can I ask you something? I know Kihyun’s technically your enemy and all what with you both playing third singles, but you’ll come to his thing right? It’s like Hoseok-hyung was saying, we can only be proper frenemies if both tennis teams are there.”

“It’s like I told Soonyoung, that’s not exactly my scene.”

“But it’s a weekday get together, not even a real party. Like, at most it’ll be drinking games.”

“I won’t promise to come, but I’ll promise to think about it.”

“Okay.” Junhui’s eyes slid closed, the quiet darkness and warmth from Wonwoo beside him lulling him quickly into a doze.

“My turn to ask something,” Wonwoo whispered.

Junhui’s eyelids fluttered open. “Hm?”

“Are you angry with me, Junnie?”

His brain processed the words extremely slowly. “Why…would I be angry?”

Wonwoo shifted his position so that he was a little more upright, resting his elbow on the mattress to support his upper body. “I don’t know if it was happening before and I just never noticed, or if it only started after Jihoon said that thing the night we went out. It’s just…I feel like something’s different. Like you’ve put up walls or something, and I can’t…I can’t get past your guard.”

Junhui swallowed. Outside, the clouds blanketing the twinkling stars slid across the dark sky, and the moon disappeared behind them, eaten up like tiny bites of cheese. If you stared out, you might think the world had stopped spinning, but the earth continued on its lumbering orbit without instruction, around its axis, around the sun, an imperceptible amount at a time.

But if you weren’t looking, the sky was always changing, Venus shifting overhead, and if you compared one snapshot to another taken at a later point in time, you’d be able to locate all the differences you might not have noticed while watching the smooth transition. A month ago, the brightest light in Junhui’s sky was the one emitted by Wonwoo, strangely vibrant and alluring without him understanding, while Minghao and Dongjin were black holes. And now, Minghao and Dongjin were steady pinpricks, while Junhui was drawn in by the enormity of Wonwoo’s gravity, so strong that not even light could escape the pull.

“Junnie?”

“I think…” Junhui paused and took a breath. “I think I have a crush.”

“Then maybe we should stop having sex.”

That must, by Junhui’s reckoning, have been a record for the world’s fastest rejection. He hadn’t even gotten to the part he’d rehearsed in the stretch of time while he exhaled, the confession of ‘ _I really like you, Wonwoo_ ,’ dying on his tongue before the words even made it to his lips.

“I—”

“Isn’t that better for the both of us?” Wonwoo asked, sitting up. He adjusted the blanket so that Junhui had all of it covering his curled up frame and then neatly got out of bed to slide under his own sheets, across the gaping void of floor between them, maybe only a step or two but now stretching a distance of several lightyears or more.

Junhui didn’t see how it could make things possibly better for him. “Are you sure?”

“Am _I_ sure? Junnie, it was always up to you,” Wonwoo said quietly. “Goodnight.”

The night was still, silence heavy, and the air in their room frigid. It made the sound of Junhui’s heart shattering that much louder.

 

 

 

 

 

“Anyone sitting here?”

Minghao looked up and took off his headphones, blinking at Junhui. “You’re not sitting with Wonwoo-hyung?”

Junhui took that as an okay to slide into the seat next to Minghao, the bus to the beach nearly full already. There had been a spot next to Jihoon, but even in this state Junhui still felt a part of him hoping that it’d be taken by Nayoung-noona again. He leaned his forehead against the back of the seats in front of them and closed his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Minghao asked, headphones fully off and around his neck now. He poked Junhui in the arm once, the second time using much more force. “You’re not okay,” he ascertained.

After more moments of Junhui sighing and not replying, Minghao leaned back with his arms crossed.

“Just so we’re clear, I’m Chinese, not clairvoyant. If you don’t say anything I’m going to stop asking about it and get pissed if it affects your tennis later.”

Junhui heaved a final sigh, thinking it wouldn’t hurt at this point, and slipped into Mandarin. “ _He broke up with me. Or rejected me? I don’t…nothing’s making sense right now_.”

“ _He what_?!” Minghao clamped a hand over his own mouth, startled by the loudness of his voice. And then, in softer tones he repeated, “ _He what?! Say something that makes sense_.”

“ _I don’t get it either, okay! I thought I was giving him enough ‘room to grow’ or whatever Mingyu called it but…clearly not, I guess_.”

“This timing is shit, you know. A week before prefecturals? At least you can, like, channel all your energy into training or something,” Minghao said, awkwardly patting Junhui’s back.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

He and Minghao were still just starting out, so Junhui didn’t think it would be a good idea to just suddenly start sobbing on the guy, and it was a good thing too. Because that wasn’t what hurt the most.

What hurt most was the way Wonwoo acted, almost exactly like he had before, with maybe less physical contact. Like it mattered absolutely nothing to him that things had changed so dramatically between them, like it didn’t matter at all whether he and Junhui were sharing a bed or not. It made Junhui feel entirely insignificant, and even more confused than before.

“We’re headed to your place now, right?” Soonyoung asked as soon as they’d dropped their bags off. “You, me, Jihoon, Junhui?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo replied without batting an eyelash.

It was hard not to think about the last training camp, when Wonwoo had watched Junhui the entire time he’d drank instead of kissing Kang Yebin, and none of the pieces of the puzzle fit together, not when Wonwoo had seemed so adamant at the time… But now, Wonwoo barely looked at him, eyes flitting over him without any interest before clocking the arrival of the train.

Wonwoo’s childhood home wasn’t exactly in a public transit-friendly place, in a neighbourhood of sprawling properties, with enormous lawns that felt more like forests, capable of housing entire greenhouses and gardens on the estates. As a kid, the roads always seemed long and winding, but now, an adult with longer legs, the walk from the closest bus stop didn’t feel nearly as time-consuming.

A street down, or maybe two, had been the house Junhui stayed at with his father’s sister after his parents’ divorce. His dad spent most of the time at the consulate, leaving his sister to take care of his son in a large house in one of the best areas of the city. But where they were headed, the houses turned into mansions, and Junhui could pinpoint the exact moment when Soonyoung noted the transition, eyes rounding.

“Jeon, your parents are fucking jacked.”

Wonwoo didn’t pause his stride for a second.

“I guess this explains why you’re never worried about broken rackets or anything like the rest of us. I bet you could have afforded an apartment by yourself in Seoul if you really wanted.”

“Close your mouth or you’ll let in flies,” Jihoon muttered, although it was clear that he was fairly impressed as well.

The sentiment continued even as they walked up the meandering interlock path leading to Wonwoo’s front doors, and there was someone waiting for them in the foyer.

“You have butlers?” Soonyoung squeaked.

“They’re not slaves,” Wonwoo squirmed. “We have to pay people to look after the house while it’s empty. And it wasn’t like I was going to let you cook in my kitchen, was it? You’d burn the place down.”

“I’m not touching anything in here,” Soonyoung swore. “I feel like your floor tiles are more expensive than my life.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Soonyoung really was quite careful with everything in the house, spick and span white walls and dark hardwood floors. He spent a long time investigating the few decorations littering the living room, mostly old photographs and the odd houseplant.

“Hey, is this a picture of you as a kid?” Soonyoung called out, holding a picture frame up.

They gathered around him, peering at the photograph, where a Wonwoo from ten years ago was smiling sort of in the direction of the camera, holding a child’s tennis racket. “Yeah. I forgot about this picture.”

Junhui wasn’t sure he ever knew it was even taken.

“Is that your brother, then?” Their attentions shifted to the other figure, who was mostly turned away from view, only a sliver of side profile showing, and the person’s hand, holding a tennis ball.

“No.” Junhui supplied this answer. It escaped him unwittingly, but it was hard not to reply automatically, when he knew exactly who that person was.

“How do you know? Have you met his brother?”

Junhui bit back the ‘yes’ on the tip of his tongue.

Wonwoo shook his head. “It’s not Bohyuk.”

Soonyoung’s fingernail tapped gently against the glass protecting the image. “Who is it then?”

“It’s…” Wonwoo paused. When Junhui looked at him, he was blinking quickly with his eyes focused on the small rectangle before them. “In the summer, when I didn’t have school, I went to tennis camp a lot. We met there.”

“Heh, it’s like you’ve come full circle, isn’t it? We’re here, your friends, for a tennis camp looking at a picture of you and your friend from tennis camp.” Soonyoung laughed alone. “So where’s your friend now?”

Junhui was still looking at Wonwoo, who seemed determined not to look back.

“Friend?” Wonwoo tilted his head as if to say he wasn’t so sure about that. “We lost contact after he moved a year or two after this photo was taken.”

“Nooooo…I was expecting a happier ending if you still have this pic hanging around. Knowing you I bet he was your only friend too.”

Wonwoo snorted. “Well…kind of.”

“Aw, see? Did you cry when he left? Never mind, wrong person to ask, you never cry.”

“Not quite,” Wonwoo said, strangely serious. “I didn’t cry when he left. But after he was gone…I think that’s why we have this framed actually. It was probably the governess who took the photo on a whim, and also probably the only photo of us together. I think she gave this to me to make me stop crying.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Junhui, mate, you can slow down. The booze isn’t going to run off on you,” Hoseok said, slugging an arm around Junhui’s shoulder.

“Slowing down would directly interfere with the goal of tonight,” Junhui replied seriously, swishing something vile tasting around his mouth.

“The goal?”

“Getting ridiculously drunk.”

Hoseok laughed. “Not too drunk though, or we won’t be able to get you home.”

He really shouldn’t get too drunk. There was something that Junhui was supposed to remember, and he’d forget it if he got any less sober than he already was. But the drinking was helping him forget the past few days.

Which, all things considered, weren’t terrible. The training camp had been a lot of fun, a bit chilly near the water, but Junhui and Minghao had done exceptionally well throughout the challenges and drills, playing a long match against Soonyoung and Seokmin that was cut short before a winner was determined because it was just too dark out to see. They were first string, so they were supposed to be better than the other doubles teams, but giving the first doubles pair a run for their money was a pretty good indicator of their strength.

It was just all the stuff. _All_ the other stuff, that Junhui didn’t want to remember or think about.

Although there was that one thing he was supposed to remember. What was it again?

“Stick by me, okay?” Hoseok said lightly. “I think they’re starting up a do or drink game so let’s put a hold on anything but water until it’s your turn.”

Junhui nodded, but that made the room go kind of funny, and he grabbed onto Hoseok’s arm to regain his balance before taking his seat. It was like grabbing onto the thick end of baseball bat, his forearm was solid muscle and huge under Junhui’s fingers.

“Here, water.”

“Thanks,” Junhui replied thickly. He swallowed half the bottle down in one go, and it helped to get the dryness out of his mouth. Whatever was going on around him passed without him processing. He didn’t know many of the people here, although he’d spotted Soonyoung around earlier on, and so their dares didn’t affect him much, and he didn’t want to force himself to care.

When it was finally Junhui’s turn, it was Kihyun who shouted, “Go on then, give Hoseok a kiss.”

“Ah, you don’t have to Junhui, he’s just playing. It’s a game, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Junhui laughed. “It’s just a kiss. Doesn’t mean anything to us but they’ll get a kick out of watching it won’t they?”

“I won’t mind either way.”

It was easy to lean forward and touch his lips gently to Hoseok’s cheekbone.

What was hard was pulling back and remembering everything that Junhui had spent the night trying to forget. How had Jieqiong put it? Kissing Hoseok was like kissing his brother.

But for some reason, what came rushing back to Junhui’s mind was the way Wonwoo used to pull him down for a kiss just after they woke up, Wonwoo’s arm around his waist, Wonwoo’s hand under his chin. Junhui thought of Wonwoo’s skin, warm and pale, his mouth, soft but demanding, his fingers, dancing up Junhui’s arms, gripping Junhui’s ass, wrapped around Junhui’s cock. Wonwoo: the way he tasted, the way his lips tasted, the way his cum tasted, the slide of Wonwoo’s tongue against Junhui’s own. Wonwoo: the way he felt spooning Junhui in bed, the way he felt inside Junhui, filling him up, the way he felt when he was just holding Junhui, loosely or in a tight hug, like he was Junhui’s defence against the world. Wonwoo: the way he smelled, right after a shower when the scent of his shampoo was still strong, during tennis practice slick with sweat. Wonwoo: Junhui could almost hear his voice saying his name, Junnie, like Junhui but not quite, just Junnie.

_Wonwoo_. Wonwoo Wonwoo Wonwoo Wonwoo Wonwoo.

Junhui felt like a tennis ball, the kind under Wonwoo’s control, the ones where he could predict his opponent’s move and counteract the spin so it didn’t matter whether you hit a backslice or topspin forehand, a flat or a smash, a lob or a volley, no matter what that ball was headed straight back to Jeon Wonwoo whether you liked it or not.

“I have to go,” Junhui heard himself say.

But go where? The only way to escape the Jeon zone was to knock the ball out of bounds.

 

 

 

 

 

_Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz._

Where was that ringing noise coming from? Why wouldn’t the sound stop?

Junhui opened his eyes as far as he could, although they were crusted together, and he had to squint because of the light pouring into the room. His head ached and it took him a while to figure out he was in his dorm room, took him longer to think about how he got here without producing any concrete ideas. He peered around him. There was a glass of water and a bottle of painkillers on the desk, but that didn’t explain the buzzing noise. He looked around again and spotted his phone, vibrating insistently on his bed.

He assumed it would be his alarm, but when Junhui squinted at the screen, it was a call from Xuanyi.

“Noona?”

“Oh, you’re awake are you?! Have you remembered that you forgot to do something?!”

Oh right, there had been that niggling feeling in the back of his mind last night…what was he supposed to remember again?

“Wen! Jun! Hui! Are you listening to me?!”

“Yes?” Junhui croaked.

He pulled the phone away from his ear as a colourful array of expletives, a mix of Mandarin, Korean, and Shanghainese, exploded from the speaker, Xuanyi’s voice alarmingly loud. “You just left Jieqiong there, you piece of fucking shit!”

Jieqiong. Fuck, that was what he was supposed to remember.

“I told you to _take care of her_. I told you _you can’t trust men_. That wasn’t supposed to mean you, asshole! You took her to some sketchy house party filled with drunken hideous sacks of testosterone.”

“What? There were girls there! She wanted to go!”

“If she wanted to go on the pioneer spaceship to Mars, would you let her?!”

“Okay, okay! It’s my fault I forgot, and I apologize, is she okay?”

“Somehow! If it weren’t for that fact that your roommate was there—”

“—Wonwoo was at the party?”

“And super pissed—”

“—Wonwoo was _drunk_ at the party?”

“No, you fucking dolt! He was angry. Like, shouting his head off causing a huge commotion angry. The entire tennis team knows about it too, Hoseok getting yelled at. Hoseok had the good conscience to tell me or I would have given him a second beating. Anyway, he took Jieqiong back to your school with him, or who knows if she’d be okay now.”

“Jeez.” Junhui pinched at the bridge of his nose, as if it would magically stop his hangover, or Xuanyi’s chastising.

“I’m going to skin you alive the next time I see you, I said she was like my sister for fuck’s sake, what the fuck is wrong with you? When did you start going to random parties in the middle of the week and getting drunk?”

Junhui winced. “It wasn’t exactly something planned.”

“Oh, it wasn’t something planned! Were you planning on helping Jieqiong back?” That started off another round of yelling from Xuanyi, who had every right to be angry, but if Jieqiong was fine then the important thing was that she was okay.

It let Junhui’s mind wander, wondering if Wonwoo was at the party, had he seen him kissing Hoseok? Not that it mattered, it was a tiny peck on the cheek, and it wasn’t like Wonwoo could say anything, not when he was the one who ended, well, whatever things were between them. He hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Wen Junhui, are you listening to me?!”

Well, he hadn’t done anything wrong other than forget Jieqiong.

 

 

 

 

 

There were two surprise changes to the line-ups for the Rush vs. Pleiades matches at the prefectural tournament.

“We know it’s last minute, but based on a lot of factors, this is probably what’ll maximize our chances of winning. Last weekend, your levels were fairly balanced, regardless of who might have won the game in the end. Lee Jooheon is an endurance specialist, and so is Minghao. In a head-to-head, it makes more sense for us to switch first and second doubles.”

No one wanted to look at Soonyoung, but it seemed like everyone’s eyes were on him anyway.

“It makes sense,” Soonyoung said grimly. “But my stamina is improving. It’s not going to be an issue by nationals and we’re going to play first doubles for all of those matches.” He looked at Seokmin. “We said we were going to be best in the country. We have to.”

Coach looked at them and nodded. “See to it then.”

Their game against Hyungwon and Minhyuk was a crushing kind of victory, fast paced and explosive, with Soonyoung dictating the tempo from start to finish. Everyone wanted to win, but Soonyoung in particular had something to prove, and that came through with the ferocity of his shots, hitting finisher after finisher and never letting up for something as simple as an easy rally. Seokmin, who was always an emotional kind of player, was fired up by his partner’s energy, and it almost made Junhui want to look away. They took some of their games without letting the Rush players have a single point, and the 6-2 6-1 result looked like it belonged more in a district tournament than in the prefectural finals.

On the other hand, the first doubles match was a long drawn out affair, fought tooth and nail. Jooheon and Changkyun took the first set 6-4, Junhui and Minghao rallied back in the second set for 7-5, and the third ended 7-6 with an extended tie break going up to 13-11.

“Sorry,” Junhui said between his panted breaths, Minghao’s arm around his neck in the weirdest turn of events. “We took your doubles spot and didn’t win.”

“Your game lasted two hours. There’s no way I would have held on for that long,” Soonyoung said kindly. “It’s a game apiece and we’ve still got singles.”

Therein lied the second change.

“Glad you agreed,” Wonwoo said calmly at the net.

Hoseok laughed. “You challenged me in front of my whole team. That’s a lot of pride on the line.”

“Hoseok-hyung’s playing third singles?” Junhui lifted his head off of Minghao’s shoulder. “ _Why_ is Hoseok-hyung playing third singles?”

Soonyoung shook his head. “I was in the bathroom or something when it happened, but apparently Wonwoo made it clear that Hoseok should play against him at the party last week.”

“Why did Wonwoo—” Junhui stopped himself and though his grip on Minghao’s wrist tightened, Minghao didn’t make a sound.

If second doubles was a crushing defeat, third singles was a massacre.

If second doubles made Junhui want to look away, third singles was a game he couldn’t watch.

But he heard each of the announcer’s calls, and the sound of murmurs in the crowd.

Hoseok was first to serve and the first point was a return ace, “Love-fifteen!”

“Love-thirty!”

“Love-forty!”

“Game! One-love. Pleiades’ Jeon Wonwoo to serve!”

And so it continued. The audience, initially clapping for each point, became hushed halfway through the first set, and by the second set there was a constant murmur, something between amazement and horror. Even Jeonghan, who was normally immune to anything happening during a game, had his hand over his mouth.

In the end it wasn’t just the bagels, although the 6-0s glared out angrily at the crowd, almost daring them to speak. The stands were muted, the applause faint. That was because Wonwoo had completely blanked Hoseok, not giving up a single point.

“ _He’s looking at you_ ,” Minghao murmured in Mandarin.

Junhui had his head down, and his face hurt. It hurt even more after hearing what Minghao had to say. “ _Can he tell that I’m crying?_ ”

The arm Minghao had around Junhui’s shoulders shifted and then there were fingers massaging at his neck. “Soonyoung-hyung had something to prove…But I guess Wonwoo-hyung had something more to prove. It’s just, I’m not exactly sure what.”

“Fuck,” was all Soonyoung said.

Jihoon was shaking his head. “That bastard…is he trying to displace me or something?”

 

 

 

 

 

“You _knew_ that was my mom calling.” Junhui glared ahead of him, towelling his hair dry after having caught pressing the decline button on his phone.

“The ringing was annoying me and you weren’t here to pick up.” Wonwoo turned the page of his book blandly, not bothering to look up.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit childish, pulling all this crap on people who just want to talk to me? First Hoseok-hyung, now my mom.”

“You’re getting it all wrong.” Wonwoo made a face, but otherwise continued reading as usual. “That wasn’t for you.”

Junhui smiled beatifically. “You remembered when we were friends as kids.”

Wonwoo scoffed. “Of course I remember.”

“You’ve never mentioned it.”

“I didn’t think I needed to. I still call you by the same nickname I used ten years ago, so it seems pretty obvious.” Wonwoo rolled his eyes. “It’s not like you said anything either.”

“Right, so I’m saying something now.” Junhui inhaled deeply. “Jeon Wonwoo, you selfish bastard, you haven’t changed at all in a decade.”

Wonwoo finally looked up and snapped his book shut, staring at Junhui with a cool blankness.

“You did this exact same shit back then, never wanted to partner up for tennis practices, but the second I asked someone else, you were pushing them down. You can’t have it both ways! And then you have the gall to say, ten years later might I add, that you were upset when I left? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Give me a break, I was eleven, and the only way I knew how to get my parents’ attention was to be rude enough that they had to care. Obviously I applied the same rules to making friends. You’re going to blame a kid for not being able to express their desire for friendship?”

“I don’t need to blame the kid when I can just blame you now.” Junhui levelled him with a glare.

“ _I_ was—Look, I told you my match against Shin Hoseok had nothing to do with you and I meant it.”

Junhui spat out the word, “Bullshit,” so hard he nearly chewed his own tongue.

“It _wasn’t_ for you. It was for me. As a reminder.”

“Bollocks. A reminder? For what exactly? ‘I don’t want Junhui but also no one else is allowed to speak to him’?”

“You’re so full of shit, and full of yourself to boot, you know that?” Wonwoo stood up. “It was a reminder, to _me_ , that it doesn’t fucking matter. Nothing fucking matters. In the grand scheme of things, I can do everything, I can do nothing, and the world will continue on exactly on course and no matter what I try, I can’t control a fucking thing. Who fucking cares if I’m top of the class in every single fucking one of my courses? Still not a good enough son! Still being yelled at for choosing a fucking sports school instead of SKY! Still being asked when I’ll quit fucking tennis. What does it matter if I’m really good at tennis? The guy who is the _only fucking reason_ I play the sport in the first place won’t just leave me once, he’ll leave a fucking second time.”

“You think I’m full of shit? Do you think I wanted to move every three years, especially after it took me that long to get you to finally acknowledge us as friends? And you’re the one with the great memory, you can’t have forgotten _you_ were the one who wanted to end things between us!”

“Did you expect me to keep fucking you while you crushed on someone else?!”

“Crushed on someone else?! Oh for god’s sake, go to hell Wonwoo, you fucking broke up with me in the middle of me confessing that I had a crush on _you_. Did you think I had a crush on Hoseok-hyung this whole time?”

“Stop saying his name!”

Junhui yelled. “I won’t! You just slaughtered a completely innocent guy in front of dozens of people over a stupid misunderstanding.”

“You _kissed_ him.”

“I—Shit, Wonwoo, you’re a piece of shit. We could have been fine this entire goddamn time.”

“No.”

“What?”

“It’s a good thing we’re over.”

Junhui couldn’t believe most of what had happened in the past 24 hours, but this was definitely taking the cake.

“People who are together…I don’t think they’re supposed to hurt each other as much as we do. When we’re together…” Wonwoo shook his head, and quickly rectified himself. “When we’re _apart _,__ if I so much as think about you my entire chest convulses. If I see you, if I just spot you of the corner of my eye, I don’t know, doing whatever, my heart feels like it’s being ripped right out of my throat trying to get to you. I can’t stand it, Junnie. I don’t think…I don’t think we’re meant to be together, if things are like this _ _.”__

__

 

 

 

 

Junhui didn’t know how long he’d been hitting shots against the ball machines at the city centre paid courts when Minghao found him. He knew he’d stuck a lot of change into the slots, and when Minghao peeled the tennis racket out of Junhui’s palm, the ripped calluses were raw and red and stung if he tried to move his fingers.

“I feel like Seokmin and I are tragic brides or something, trying to save you and Soonyoung-hyung from yourselves.”

Minghao guided Junhui out of the courts with a hand on his back, and then sat him down before putting a bottle of water into Junhui’s left hand.

“Although, I’d say you’re kind of in worse straits even though he was the one who did any losing.”

Junhui made a noise between a groan and sigh.

“Yeah, I can guess the reason why. But I’m just saying, if your hand hurts too much tomorrow in practice to do anything useful, I’m making you drink both our punishment drinks from Jeonghan-hyung. Apparently he’s doing something with sardines.”

“Little Haohao,” Junhui started. “Oh, sorry. Minghao, I mean.”

“It’s…okay…” Minghao said slowly. “I’m developing a very high Junhui tolerance at a very high speed.”

“Minghao.”

“Yes.”

“I’m really…Despite everything…Or maybe because of it…I love him. I’m _in_ love with him.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Sorry, I know I’ve leaned a lot on you this past week. Probably a bit too much.”

“No, that wasn’t my point. I meant, why are you telling _me_ this and not him? I already knew. I told you, didn’t I, weeks ago? Well, I guess I said like, but I said you cared about him and I meant that you…feel really strongly about him. It’s not news to me. But it might be news to him.”

“I don’t…know if he really attributes much to the sentiment. You know, like, when you’re a kid for example, and your parents tell you that they love you? But you can’t understand, if they love you, they wouldn’t act the way they do sometimes. The actions seem to say something completely different from the words, or thoughts, or feelings. It’s hard to trust words. It’s easier to have faith in actions.”

“Okay, that’s well and good, but you know the only reason I found where you were is because Wonwoo told me where he thought you’d be, right?”

 

 

 

 

 

Junhui spent the next week with more hours in the library than anywhere else. It was a good way to get his coursework done, and he felt guilty spending time in there not studying, so it decreased his internet browsing and lessened the amount of time he wasted. But the number of hours there also stacked up. He hadn’t noticed how much time he spent per day with Wonwoo until they weren’t spending those hours together, and he had huge blocks of time unsure of what to do with himself, including meal times and every evening, after he’d finished up afternoon practice and the stuff he needed to do for class.

His grades, much to Junhui’s dismay, did not go through an uptick. The amount of studying he had to do seemed only to expand to fill the space he had available, and despite the perceived difference in exertion, there was no marked difference in results to be found.

“That’s how the curve works,” Jeonghan explained. “It only takes some effort to get middling grades, but to really improve them at a certain point, you need a significant increase, and for most people, the time and brainpower just isn’t there. One day you’ll be at peace with your marks, Junhui, like I am, and the numbers will just be high no matter how much you prepare.”

Then, he’d smiled and passed Junhui his cup for the day. “Okay, drink up now, the fish oil in these cost me an arm and a leg. Not literally! Or _do_ I mean it literally…?”

On the other hand, progress in tennis was a bit more linear, or at least, much more predictable.

“We’ve got a little bit of time before regionals, so we’re going to go back through the old game videos we have and comb through to find common errors.” Coach told them, and the practices that followed were all designed to make up for any weaker areas they found.

Junhui spent most of his free practice time on elbow and shoulder stability, tendon loading exercises, and controlled neuromuscular activation. After a review of prefecturals, the coaches had concluded Minghao and Junhui’s deadliest shots in their arsenal were the reflexive volleys, and drills skewed heavy toward no bounce drills, training aggressive net play and shot choice in ways that made it difficult to avoid getting hit in the face at least once or twice every practice.

“Don’t duck!” someone was always yelling, “We have to train the fear of balls and tendency to bail out of you.” It seemed stupid and counter to every evolutionary instinct, but eventually Junhui got used to the idea of lifting his racket to protect his face rather than moving his face itself, rewiring the connections in his nervous system like it was a life hack.

“This is…kind of fun.” Minghao said, raising the end of his sentence so it sounded more like a question than a statement. “I think I like doubles.”

“Aww yes, that’s another convert!” Soonyoung exclaimed, giving both Seokmin and Junhui high fives before dancing on the spot. “Look at them singles players not being able to relate…don’t you feel sorry for them?”

Junhui had laughed along while he and Wonwoo carefully avoided eye contact.

“Dumbasses,” Wonwoo muttered.

“Jeon, you’ve gotten mean again lately…when’s the last time you got laid? Huh? Did whoever gave you those crazy hickeys leave you or something?!”

Junhui couldn’t help himself then, he’d looked at Wonwoo, wondering if there’d be any reaction, but there was not a single hint of recognition at what Soonyoung was referencing. Wonwoo simply headed off to the change room without them.

And then, when Junhui got back to the dorm, spending almost all evening in the library, there was an ice pack sitting on his desk, the instant single-use kind where you broke the bag inside to make the contents freeze, and every subsequent time Junhui got slammed in the face by a ball, another one appear somewhere among his belongings, and he knew exactly who the stupid godawful things came from.

 

 

 

 

 

“What’s the point in being a mother if your own son ignores your phone calls?”

Junhui’s mother phoned again later in the week, whining to him as soon as he picked up. She seemed pleased to hear him laugh. “Sorry mom, I didn’t have my phone with me when you were calling, and then some stuff happened so I never got to phone back. But we’re talking now, right?”

She tsked, the sound not translating well over the microphone, or the internet, a mixture of both things distorting the noise. “Well then, go on, tell me how you did at the tournament.”

“Prefectural champions again,” Junhui said, carefully avoiding going into more detailed specifics. “I think our captain cried. Actually, he did cry, and then he told all of us not to get sloppy or complacent because it wasn’t the national trophy yet.”

“So you’re going to the national tournament then?”

“We’ll see where we’re seeded after the regional competition, but we’ve at least qualified for it, yes. Hopefully we’ll do well at regionals and get a good draw so we don’t end up knocked out early or something. It’s a shorter season than a lot of sports, so overplaying and fatigue can catch up.”

Junhui’s mother’s voice caught sharply. “You better not be hinting that you’re injured. I tell you every single time I call that you have to take care of yourself. You don’t want me to worry, but if you’re hurt, nothing’s going to stop me from taking a plane straight there.”

“Mom!” He smacked his own forehead, feeling stupid for even mentioning the possibility. She could get pretty carried away with her imagination when it came to these kinds of things, whether or not there was any basis for concern. “I’m not injured! Or fatigued! Or overplayed! This season’s been kind of weird but I promise you that everything is fine, you don’t need to worry, and that _I’m_ fine.”

“Promise? Promise me you’re not hurt anywhere.”

“I’m fine mom, I promise. I’m not hurt.” Which was true, physically anyway. Other than regular, perfectly healthy post-exercise muscle soreness on hard resistance training days, Junhui was fine. The sharp chest pains…those were something else.

His mother must have sensed some of his wariness, because two days later he got a text from Xuanyi, saying that his mother had called her and they needed to talk, pronto.

“Okay, update me on every single thing that’s happened to you since the last time we talked to now, and don’t leave a single thing out because I’m still harbouring resentment that you forgot about Jieqiong. And don’t you dare say ‘I’m fine.’ I’ll come over and kill you myself if you try that.”

“You, personally? I’m honoured that you’d do the deed yourself instead of hiring someone else to kill me, noona.”

“Are you trying me right now?”

So Junhui briefed Xuanyi as quickly as he could, and when he was done speaking about it, Junhui felt exhausted and ready to let go.

“Oh, heartbreak. That’s easy, I thought this was going to be much much worse.”

Junhui couldn’t imagine anything worse.

“Look, the solution is easy, two pints of ice cream, and start to remember that you exist as a whole person without someone else in your life. No alcohol. Is this why you got drunk at the party? God, alcohol is the worst in these sorts of situations, you just make mistakes that require even more ice cream to fix.” Xuanyi paused. “Hang on, did I not warn you about relationships with people on your floor? Junhui, you went and got involved with your _roommate_?! Do you know what my face looks like right now? This is unbelievable, you’re unbelievable. Save some ice cream for when I come over so I can rub it all over your ugly little face.”

And then, as if the first two calls weren’t difficult enough, there was the one to Hoseok-hyung.

Junhui wondered if he was supposed to apologize, if he was the person who was meant to explain why Wonwoo had gone on a rampage, or say something about the party.

Hoseok, however, seemed happy just to hear from him. “Thanks to you guys our training is brutal now,” he said cheerfully. “Also, the guys made me dye my hair back to black. I haven’t had black hair since high school!”

“Erm…sorry about that.”

“Why are you saying sorry? It’s good, a wake-up call for us, you know? We’ll have to work really hard to get through qualifiers for nationals, but trust me, the next time you face us? You’re not going to win. Kihyun’s pasted a picture of your captain on a punching bag, and I think he imagines his face even when he’s shadowboxing.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I guess I wasn’t expecting you guys to take everything so well…not, so well, but you know what I mean. To have moved on, in a way.”

“Junhui, we lose more in life than we ever win. You have to just get up, dust yourself off, and continue. Honestly, being able to recover well is a way more valuable skill than winning, you know.”

 

 

Weekends in the weight room were as eerily empty as ever. Junhui surveyed the mental checklist in his head. Soonyoung on the treadmill - yep. Guy from the football team hogging up the smith machine - yep. Weights left on the bench barbell from people forgetting to re-rack after they finished - yep.

“Wanna spot me today?” Minghao asked, wandering up to Soonyoung.

“Now that I actually want to stay running, you’re asking me for help?” Soonyoung asked, a little breathless but perfectly coherent.

“Didn’t need you before.”

“Go bother Junhui. I’m on my way to breaking 25 minutes for my 5k time.”

Minghao, when he focused on a particular muscle, made scary fast progress. The past little while had been shoulders, startling volume on military presses, and these days you could fit a pen under the groove of Minghao’s deltoids.

“Wanna see if I can hit a PR on my bench,” Minghao explained, pulling Junhui out of the squat rack. “Gotta get my chest more developed.”

Junhui looked thoughtful. “Like Hoseok-hyung’s, you could bounce coins off of his pecs.”

“I…that’s not…can you just stand over me and provide support when I ask for it?”

Junhui laughed. Then he spotted someone taking over his squat rack even though he hadn’t technically finished with it and he narrowed his eyes. Said person turned around and—

“—Junhui!” Minghao barked.

He rushed to help Minghao at the top of his last rep, the two of them noisily clanking the barbell back into its resting place.

Minghao sat up so quickly he nearly hit his head against the top of the barbell and glared. “Are you so useless you can’t even spot?”

But Junhui was still staring at the squat rack, where Wonwoo was warming up. And wearing glasses.

“Oh boy,” Minghao muttered, standing up to adjust the plates on one end of the barbell.

Junhui hurried to the other side, nearly taking out his own stomach colliding with the support stand trying to get out from behind the bench, and hid the pain with a huff of breath. “How much are you adding?”

“Nothing. We’re removing all of it and going to lunch. Right now.”

“We’re done?” Junhui asked.

“We’re done, get a move on it.”

They were sitting at a table by themselves in the cafeteria when Junhui couldn’t contain himself any longer. “I was the one who told him to get glasses!” he blurted out. “The idiot finally listened, but couldn’t do it while _I_ was nagging him about it? In the end I was right in saying that his eyesight was bad enough that he needed them, but of course, never listen to Junhui, right?”

Minghao lifted a finger as indication to pause, and waited until he’d finished chewing his bite of sweet potato before saying, “Just in case you forgot, let me remind you that my major is in actuarial science, not marriage counselling.”

“God, I used to think about marrying him all the time. Not like, imagining a wedding, or a veil or things like that, stop looking so disgusted, I just mean like, I thought about the possibility that we were…endgame? I didn’t want to let myself get pulled into false delusions or whatever, but even Xuanyi said it sounded like fate when I mentioned that we played tennis together as kids.”

Minghao put down his chopsticks, like his appetite had vanished just in the span of time while Junhui spoke. “Are you going to try to…rekindle things with him?”

“Should I…?”

“I don’t really think this,” Minghao gestured vaguely, “has really been you getting over him. Maybe learning to live without him in every moment of your life but.”

“But?”

Junhui received a mere shrug. “Also, I don’t really think,” Minghao said, peering out to where Wonwoo had suddenly appeared in the cafeteria as well, “that he’s been getting over you either.”

“What would you do if you were me?”

“I wouldn’t do what I would do if I were you. Does that make sense? We’re so different that I can’t imagine our life choices would ever be the same. But can I be honest about something for a second? I kind of wish sometimes that you were, well, at least friends, so I can foist you off on him. I mean, my Junhui tolerance is high but I still have a limit.”

“Mean,” Junhui said reaching across the table to grab at Minghao’s arm. “That’s just mean.”

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m glad you could make time for me,” Junhui’s father said, draping his napkin over his lap with a flourish.

They were sitting in some fancy French restaurant that required Junhui to dress up nicely, and he felt stuffy in the collared shirt and dress shoes, so different from his normal sweatshirts and runners.

“It was good timing,” Junhui replied quietly. Something he was beginning to learn was important to relationships. “Regionals don’t start until next weekend so I had time off.”

“I heard from your mother that you won the prefectural tournament,” his father said, enunciating each word carefully.

“Well, not me personally. I actually lost the game I was playing in. But our team won, so that’s what’s important.”

His father nodded, and stayed quiet until the server had finished setting down their appetizers and refilling their water glasses. “You’re right. It’s true in diplomatic work as well, sometimes individuals will take small losses so that the group can win as a whole, so to speak.”

“Not everything has to be related back to diplomacy.”

“Maybe. I thought you were still interested in international relations?”

“I don’t have to apply my major in every single aspect of my life.”

Junhui fidgeted with the cuff on his sleeve while his father ate calmly. He still felt so much like a child in front of him, even when he was taken to adult places. His father, Junhui supposed, should have felt like home, but whenever they were together, Junhui felt like he simply didn’t belong.

“I didn’t know you and mom talked,” Junhui said awkwardly, eyes down on his plate.

“We don’t. Not usually, anyway. But once in a while we’ll talk about you. We’re your parents, you know.”

“Okay, can I ask something?”

His father inclined his head.

“Years ago…when you and mom divorced, afterward, I just couldn’t figure out _why_. You hadn’t gotten into any big arguments, it didn’t seem like anything had changed drastically since I was a kid.”

“Because things hadn’t. But your mother and I, we thought that once you got older, our relationship would eventually return back to the way it was when we first met. I don’t mean that it changed because we had you, I mean years and years ago, when we were dating, and I hadn’t yet asked her to marry me. We thought that was what real love was, and that was our one experience of it.”

“And things didn’t go back.”

“No, Junhui, you must understand. Nothing ever goes back. People change constantly, and that’s part of love. Your mother and I were too young to understand it then, that love is about choosing someone over and over again, when you change, when they change, when both of you change and the world around you changes. We were waiting for something to happen to us, but really, we should have been creating the something ourselves.”

Was that how it was for her and Junhui’s stepfather now?

“We’re always making choices, son. Even inactivity has to be decided upon.”

 

 

 

 

 

Not unexpectedly, Junhui and Minghao slid back to second doubles for the regional tournament against a religiously affiliated college with some crazy high tuition and a fancy Latin name. They both stared at their opponents, who conversed solely in English with each other.

“ _We can understand you, you know_ ,” Minghao deadpanned. Turning to Junhui he made a face. “Why do they all do this?”

“Oh yeah? Hey, bro, I’m Bambam, what’s up, man?”

Minghao blinked, and turned around to stand at the baseline, readying for his serve.

“Don’t worry,” Junhui said cheerfully. “He did that whole ignoring shtick to me when we met too, and now we’re great friends.”

Minghao’s first serve knocked Junhui in the back of a shoulder, and when Junhui turned to glare at him, Minghao offered little more than an unapologetic, “oops.”

The game frustrated Junhui a lot. They weren’t playing badly, keeping unforced errors to a minimum, holding their own in the service court area, Minghao’s blistering groundstrokes holding their opponents back, Junhui’s drop volleys keeping them lunging for shots. Still, they found themselves on the losing end of a three set match, and Junhui couldn’t stop himself from apologizing profusely at the end.

“Yeah, whatever, we’ll just have to do better at nationals. Got the rest of them behind us, haven’t we?” Minghao asked, jerking a finger back and giving Junhui a one-armed hug, a complete reversal of their earlier games, when Junhui had been the one grabbing Minghao’s shoulders.

Luckily, Soonyoung and Seokmin were faring better against their opponents, even though the more subdued one was ripping serves at them for multiple aces. Soonyoung’s competitive nature was encouraged by a seemingly un-returnable shot, and the game was really heating up when there was a tap on Junhui’s shoulder and a racket shoved under his nose.

“Come hit warm ups with me,” Wonwoo said roughly.

Junhui looked around them, where it was obvious that others were paying attention to the interaction, and he felt obliged to stand and follow him to the warm-up area outside the courts, separated from the fenced grounds by a hitting wall.

Wonwoo raised an eyebrow at him and Junhui lowered his chin. So started a half-volley serve and an easy rally, Junhui alternating to Wonwoo’s forehand and backhand, letting him run a bit, while Wonwoo returned pinpoint shots to the centre of Junhui’s forehand.

“Are you dating Minghao now or something?” Wonwoo asked suddenly.

Junhui nearly dropped his entire racket.

“That’s what you want to say to me?!”

“Just answer the question, Moon.”

“Of fucking course not,” Junhui half-screeched, smashing the ball back at this point. “You fucking dipshit, how could you ask me something like that?!”

Wonwoo caught the ball in his hand, effectively ending the rally. “Okay. Are you seeing anyone else?”

Junhui wanted to throw his racket at Wonwoo’s stupid, bespectacled face. “No, you git!”

“Okay.”

“Okay?!”

That was the honest end of the conversation, because Wonwoo had turned around and was walking back to the match courts, leaving Junhui fuming behind him, squeezing at the strings on the racket in his hands as if they were a stress ball. It was Wonwoo’s fault he’d taken the actual tennis ball away.

“Did we win?” Junhui grumbled, sliding into his seat beside Minghao in the stands.

“Yeah. What happened with you two?”

“Same as usual, him driving me up the wall.”

Minghao patted him on the back. “You don’t need help there, I don’t think.”

“What are you saying about me?”

The game progressed quickly, a duel of intelligence players with eagle eyes, keen to spot each opponent’s weaknesses.

It happened quickly, so quickly Junhui didn’t quite figure out what happened until it had already happened. One second, the player from Ars Vita was throwing, the next Wonwoo was on his knees, hand over one eye, his glasses skittering away from him, and blood seeping through the gaps between his fingers.

“Wonwoo!”

It wasn’t just Junhui’s voice who shouted his name, but it was just Junhui who was vaulting over the divider between the stands and the court, grabbing the first aid kit and running up behind coach.

“I can’t believe he was saving a kick serve,” Wonwoo muttered.

Coach tutted his tongue and moved Wonwoo’s hand aside to examine the injury.

Junhui had to look away immediately. He didn’t think he was squeamish at the sight of blood, but seeing so much of Wonwoo’s blood leaving him petrified Junhui. He felt himself gagging, and squatted down to ease the nausea.

The on-site medic finally arrived to inspect the damage, and Wonwoo largely ignored the doctor while she prodded at Wonwoo’s face.

“Can you not hyperventilate on me? I’m the one who’s injured you know,” Wonwoo said mildly, reaching for Junhui’s hand. He interlocked their fingers together, and Junhui squeezed back automatically.

“There’s no damage to the eye, but the wound on the lid is a hefty chunk. We can temporarily stop the bleeding but you’re going to have to see a doctor to get tissue adhesive, sutures are probably not a good idea.”

Junhui quickly said, “I’ll take him—”

“—How long?”

Everyone turned to look at Wonwoo.

“How long for what?”

“How long can you stop the bleeding for? I’m ten minutes out from winning this match, so I just need to not bleed everywhere for ten minutes.”

“Wonwoo-goon, we’ll be okay if we forfeit this match—”

“—Please coach.”

There was an exasperated sigh from Coach Han. “Ten minutes. After that I’m pulling you whether you like it or not.”

“Are you kidding me?!”

“Junnie?”

Junhui stopped squawking long enough to hear what Wonwoo had to say.

“You’ll bench coach, right?”

Like Wonwoo needed to ask. Junhui sat with folded arms and Wonwoo’s glasses in his hands, beside Coach who also sported folded arms. He wondered if Wonwoo thought he looked cool, a huge wad of gauze taped over one side of his face, a sneering expression from his lips.

“Sorry for the wait,” Wonwoo said calmly. “Can you hurry up and serve? I have ten minutes to beat you before my boyfriend takes me to the hospital.”

“Boyfriend?!”

The voice certainly sounded like Soonyoung, but it was hard for Junhui to tell with his head feeling so faint.

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s only suitable that you were the one who had to come with me to the hospital you know,” Wonwoo said lightly. They were the first words they’d exchanged since leaving the tennis courts. They hadn’t even talked in the waiting room before a doctor could take a look, although through the entire process, Junhui hadn’t let go of Wonwoo’s hand. And Wonwoo hadn’t let go of Junhui’s either. “It’s your fault I was wearing glasses in the first place, and if I hadn’t been, the ball would have bounced away harmlessly instead of cutting me with my own frames.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me that it’s also my fault you were wearing glasses and your depth perception was skewed so you misjudged the rise of the ball.”

“How did you know?”

“Fuck, Wonwoo, that’s really all you have to say?”

“What? What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know, how about discussing something with me before springing ‘boyfriends’ where everyone else could hear you.”

Wonwoo stopped walking and looked down at their hands, held together, before looking at Junhui, blinking the single open eye. “You didn’t see yourself earlier…when you just, hurdled the wall like it was nothing…were you planning on answering anything but yes?”

“Were you planning on asking me a question?!” Junhui punched Wonwoo in the chest.

“Don’t hit injured people, that’s not nice.”

“I’m not nice to you, remember?”

“Wonder why I’m so madly in love with you then,” Wonwoo mused. He sniffed and scratched at the back of an ear with a single finger.

Junhui punched him in the chest again. “You can’t just say things like that.”

“Ow.”

“Sorry, did I hit too hard?” Junhui asked quickly, rubbing at the spot where his hand was.

Wonwoo broke out into uncontrolled laughter, his nose scrunched up and mouth in a toothy grin. “Like I said, you’re kind of obvious.”

Junhui sucked behind his teeth and didn’t say anything to defend himself. They walked in the ambient noise of the city streets, cars honking and engines growling, but nothing spoken between the two of them for several blocks.

“You know…I was really gutted after I found out Dongjin left. Like, completely devastated.”

“I could tell. And I tried to get you to talk about it, but you wouldn’t say anything.”

“Isn’t that the problem? We never said anything to each other. I asked about your parents all the time, and the only time you answer was when we were in the middle of the biggest argument we’ve ever had.”

“Because we’re _bad_ at talking. We think we have to win games on our own. What would you expect from a singles player and someone who works in doubles pairings on instinct instead of communication?”

“Okay, but that’s not my point. My point…When it’s one partner it’s okay, but two partners leaving you? Hard not to start thinking you’re the problem. And then Minghao basically said I was the most annoying person alive, so I thought that the only way I could keep you, the only way I could make you stay beside me…was to change myself. To fix the root of the problem.”

“Stupid.”

“Hey!”

“You’re an idiot. Why the fuck would you change when I’m in love with you exactly the way you are?”

“I didn’t know!”

“So I’m telling you now! I love you. That’s my unsaid piece. Your turn.”

“I think you were wrong,” Junhui said. He looked sideways at Wonwoo. “I think people who love each other hurt each other all the time, not on purpose, but it happens. And it hurts more then because it’s the one person you don’t want to hurt that you’ve hurt, or the one person you trust not to hurt you who hurts you. But when you love someone, and they love you back, they’re also the person who makes all of that pain go away. So it can hurt…but it’s okay in the end.”

“Are you just not going to outright say it then?”

“Say what?”

“I’ve confessed to you three times now, and you’re just not going to say anything back, I see.”

“The last time I tried to tell you I love you,” Junhui exploded, “you told me we should stop having sex!”

Wonwoo blinked. Then he smiled a bit lecherously. “Oh, I definitely take that back. We should definitely have sex again. Lots of it. All the time.”

“Honestly, I don’t understand why I love you so much.”

“Hah! You said it.”

“Wonwoo—”

“Say, Junnie?”

“What?”

“This means it’s our day one, right?”

“Are you still hung up on the boyfriends thing? Like, to be honest, it was nice hearing you call me that but our day one could have been right at the start of term if you just asked like a normal person but instead we were just hooking up and never talking about it and—”

“Junnie?”

“What?” Junhui snapped.

“Can you shut up for 3 seconds so I can kiss you before you finish your rant?”

“I’m trying out the talking things out thing—” Junhui made an indignant noise as he was cut off by Wonwoo’s mouth, although that didn’t make him any less eager of a participant in the kiss.

“People are staring at us now.”

“Let them,” Wonwoo said easily, arms around Junhui’s waist. “They’re looking at next month’s cover of varsity news.”

“That confident we’ll win nationals?”

Wonwoo pulled back. “You know, it’s the funniest thing. Honestly, we could lose nationals now and I think I’d be alright.”

“You’re joking.”

“No, I mean, like it’ll suck and I’ll be upset and stuff, but if you’re there…If you’re there with me, Junnie, I feel like everything will be alright.”

 

 

 

 

 

Sex, now that they were both aware that it was sex _with feelings_ , had taken a turn for the slower. They fucked not like two boys wanting to get off, but like two boys who had all the time in the world, or at least, two boys who had the rest of their lives to enjoy each other.

Junhui lounged spread over Wonwoo’s naked body for three hours on Sunday morning, tasting every inch of his chest so, as Wonwoo put it, the marks wouldn’t show up on his neck where Kwon Soonyoung might see and embarrass them in the library. Junhui thought that was a bit of a lost cause; since Soonyoung was made aware of their relationship, he hadn’t stopped making kissy faces at either of them all of dinner the night before.

“Are you having fun there?” Wonwoo murmured, his right thumb sweeping repeatedly across Junhui’s forehead, his left hand holding Junhui’s elbow.

“Yeah. Are you not?”

“Me? I could watch you doing this for days, Junnie, if it didn’t leave me brain dead from the semi I’ve had for the past hour with you putting your tongue everywhere.”

“Mm…feel like I could help you with that.”

“Gonna show me how it’s done, southpaw?”

In the early evening, when Junhui started toying with the idea that they should get up and eat something, if just to do anything other than have fuck all day, Wonwoo pulled out his notebook and jotted something down.

“Whatcha writing about?” Junhui asked, chin in his hands.

Wonwoo looked at him. “Could you really not guess?”

Junhui pouted and shook his head.

“You, Junnie. Everything I write is always about you.”

__

 

 

_Love means nothing in tennis  
_ _But tennis means nothing  
_ _Without you_

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title based on 'The Tezuka Zone':  
>  _"A (nearly) impossible technique. This technique forces any shots the opponent hits right back to Tezuka. The reason that an opponent's returns get "sucked" into Tezuka's hit zone is due to the spin he forces onto the ball. Tezuka halves the spin on the opponent's shots - that's the reason why they go towards the center of the court. When using this technique, Tezuka does not even need to move a step; all he needs to do is pivot one foot, without lifting it off the ground, around the area he is standing in and put a specific rotation on the ball with every hit. With every return, Tezuka can (presumably, due to deduction) add a new heavy spin to the ball."_
> 
> Warnings:  
> 1\. Ambiguous setting (Korea? but highly Americanized)  
> 2\. Ages have been fudged a bit for the purposes of fitting people into university  
> 3\. Sex after alcohol consumption (Not drunk, consent is discussed)  
> 4\. Potentially physics-defying tennis? + Shenanigans in line with the original TeniPuri series (e.g. Inui juice —> Jeonghan Juice). 
> 
> Additional Pairings:  
> 1\. Yebin/Kyulkyung  
> 2\. Implied? Pre-Jihoon/Nayoung


End file.
